


Riverbound

by FlightFright



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: CW for epic time travel shenanigans, Gen, Incredibly self indulgent, Multi, Relationships Will Be Added As They Appear, The Reader/Guardian is a human from Earth C, a type of human anyways
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 49
Words: 151,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23450455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightFright/pseuds/FlightFright
Summary: The Guardian, formerly known as the Reader, knows that the battle isn't over yet.In which shenanigans ensue, epic friendships are re-ignited, and the war for Alternia has just begun.
Relationships: Azdaja Knelax/Konyyl Okimaw, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Folykl Darane/Kuprum Maxlol, Folykl Darane/Marsti Houtek, MSPA Reader & Everyone, Mallek Adalov/Azdaja Knelax, Polypa Goezee & MSPA Reader, Remele Namaaq/Chixie Roixmr, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Tyzias Entykk & Daraya Jonjet, Tyzias Entykk/Stelsa Sezyat
Comments: 1500
Kudos: 568





	1. Of Time, Rewound

Your name is MSPA READER, and you are currently vibing outside of the known multiverse. 

Well, you don’t really use that name anymore, on account of it not actually being a name. Names sound something like _Emily,_ or _Muhammad,_ or _Patrick,_ or _Shamita,_ or a million other put-together syllables and sounds. 

Names are something personal. A title is anything but. 

You do have a new title, though, one you like much better. 

_The Guardian._

Because that’s what you became when you yoinked the timeline away from the control of Ultimate Dirk and that Director lady, whoever she was. You looked Canon-With-A-Capital-C in its ugly face, spit on it, and then bent over to wipe your ass with the fabric of reality itself. Out of desperation, love, and most importantly _sheer spite,_ you took it upon yourself to defy fate so that there is at least one timeline where everybody gets to live happy lives. This was victory at its finest. This is what it felt like to _finally_ get everything you wanted. Your friends? Safe. Multiverse? Secure. Hotel? Trivago. 

In the vast and rich history of pro-gamer moves, you believe you might have made the most powerful move of all. 

After using the Green Sun- no, sorry, the GREEN SUN to make your own timeline, you did what any other person would do and took a big fuckin’ snooze, curling up around your universe like a mama cat protecting her kittens. You earned it. 

And, if you were being completely honest with yourself, that’s how you would have spent the rest of time. 

It’s not like you didn’t want to live. No, living was good. It’s just… you were _so damn tired._ You’re tired of always running from place to place, person to person, era to era. You’re tired of being injured, scared, and alone no matter how many friends you made. All the gods of the Furthest Rings know you’d gone through more in like a year than most people go through during their entire lives. Couldn’t a bitch just enjoy eternity in the void? 

Apparently not. 

The dreams began innocently enough. Playing video games with Dave, John, and Karkat. Exploring Jade’s island with Jake and Bec. Baking with Jane. Kanaya teaching you and Sollux how to sew. FLARP-ing with Vriska. 

Laying side-by-side with Roxy as you two watched the sun rise. Role-playing with Nepeta. Movie night with Eridan. Getting high off your ass with Gamzee and scaring the shit out of some teal visiting their kismesis a few hives away. Discussing politics with Feferi. 

Escaping that hellhouse the Soleil twins called their home. Watching those eerie lights in the corpsefield beside Fozzer. You and Remele beating a purpleblood to death. 

You barely realize how nightmares had invaded your mind until you woke up with Karako’s yowls of terror in your ears. You didn’t have ears anymore, though, or a physical form, so it just sounded like your favorite clown son was screaming all around you in the abyss. 

Okay. This was fine. This was fine, you kept telling yourself. After everything that’s happened to you, you were bound to develop PTSD at some point. That was completely natural. 

Except this wasn’t just PTSD. This was something else entirely, because even when you were awake you saw the faces of your oldest friends burning in your mind’s eye. Something churned in your gut, ancient and primal. It was a feeling you knew well, and was usually accompanied by you launching yourself into whatever stupid shit you found next. The longer you tried to ignore it, the stronger it became, until you were permanently wrapped up around yourself like the most pathetic ball of Guardian that had to have ever existed. 

You knew long before you actually put words to what was going on. 

Of course. Of course it wasn’t over, because why would you ever get to have anything for yourself? Why would you ever get to just _rest?_ For the first time in… who even knows how long, you sob hysterically into the sleeves of your hoodie. 

A galaxy twinkles in the outer shell of your universe, lighting up the zig-zag sign on your chest. Mallek’s lazy smile fills your thoughts. If at all possible, everything hurts even more, until you can’t even cry to let out the pain. 

Did he miss you? Did all of them miss you? 

Oh, God, _Daraya._ You promised her you’d take her to Earth sometime, and then you just totally fucking vanished from the face of Alternia. What a fucking dick move. Granted, you hadn’t _meant_ to do it, but still!

Your traitor-asshole brain reminds you of the fact that all of them are dead now. As in, Tyzias tried to lead a rebellion against the Alternian Empire, and then they all got killed. Your traitor-asshole brain also notes that it’s all your fault for encouraging those kinds of ideas. 

_Way to go, you absolute tool._

Except… they don’t _have_ to be gone. You are the Guardian of your universe, and you make the rules. It feels so wrong to even think about it, but… yeah. You’re basically a god now. You can do what you want and nobody has the power to stop you. 

Which brings about a whole new plethora of fuckery. If you were to go back, if you were to rewrite history… are you any better than Ultimate Dirk? Granted, you’d do it out of love, not because you’re a power-hungry bastard, but still. Shenanigans of this level are _not_ to be taken lightly, even by sad Guardians with absolutely nothing better to do. 

You sleep on it, which of course results in you waking up bawling like a baby as you remember the best roleplay sesh of your life, which was when Wanshi proudly gave your _Soldier Purrbeasts_ OC her full name: Twinklemoon. You had a _Soldier Purrbeasts_ OC named Twinklemoon. That’s why you were crying. 

_That’s it._ You couldn’t stand it anymore. 

You need advice, and you know exactly where to get it. 

<>

You find her on the _8rigantine,_ furiously scribbling something down on a chart with a bunch of little figurines in the middle of it. You know better than to just haul your little friendslut ass up there while Vriska Serket is in the zone, so instead you knock on the hull and call up to her. 

“Hello! Lady Spinneret, an old friend is in dire need of some advice!”

It takes about two seconds for a familiar spiky head to poke over the side of the deck. Vriska’s one dark eye lights up upon meeting your gaze, followed by a toothy grin that’s both menacing and completely genuine. She reaches back to grab something behind her. A rope ladder drops down and nearly nails you in the noggin, just like it did whenever you dropped by to FLARP with her. 

“What the hell, bitch! I missed you!” she yells. Despite everything, you can’t help but smile. Vriska’s wild personality and no-bullshit attitude was just what you needed. 

You’re very proud of yourself when you scale the ladder with ease and scramble up onto the deck without getting too much out of breath. With the amount of insane shit you’ve gotten yourself into during your travels, getting into shape came pretty easily. You’ve been told by several reliable sources that your legs are to die for. 

“The 8-ball foretold your arrival. I brought snacks.” Vriska points to a bag next to her chart, not looking up from where she was drawing an impressively detailed kraken-looking thing. “Eat something before you start gabbing.”

That was sound logic, so you drag the back closer to you and start rooting around for something good. You find a bag of stinkroot chips, open that bad boy up, and start munching. Damn, did it feel good to eat something, and to also have a corporeal body to eat things with. 

As you gather your thoughts, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle with the sensation of somebody’s eyes on you. You instantly look up to see Vriska staring at you. Her expression is blank, but her good eye held all the energy of a thunderstorm. 

You swallow your chips. “What is it?”

“You look… different,” she says, setting down her pencil. “It’s like I can really see you now.”

“Huh?”

Vriska huffs, but she still doesn’t take her eye off you. “Before, you kinda looked like… I dunno, like somebody cut out a whole in reality and shoved the silhouette of a person inside? Like, I know what you looked like, but I couldn’t tell you the color of your hair, or what facial structure you have, or, like… dude, you have _freckles.”_

“I have freckles?” You reach up and touch your cheekbone, feeling the soft skin. Oh, hey, there’s some acne. Dammit. “Are they cute?”

“Sure? I think freckles are more of a human thing, so you’d have to ask John or Jade or whatever. Also you’re blonde, like Rose,” she tells you, thoughtfully scratching at her chin. “You’re still short as fuck, though. I could probably punt you off the poop deck.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Congrats on not looking like a hole in reality.”

You finish off your chips and flop back to stare at the night sky. With all the time you’ve spent on Alternia, you can now name a lot of the constellations. Right now, the Empress’s Trident poked up at a forty-five degree angle behind the pink moon. “I think I know how we can overthrow the Alternian Empire.”

Vriska’s pencil falls out of her hand. 

You continue. “Have you read any records on a rebellion that occurred about… like, fifteen sweeps ago? I don’t know the exact date.”

Vriska’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, and then she nods. “I sure fuckin’ did. Sollux did some of his mumbo-jumbo and got me some documents. He called it an early wriggling day present, but I know he wants to help my little… agenda. How do you even know…?”

“Because I helped encourage the right people to do it. I was _there,_ Vriska. Those kids were my friends, and now they’re dead.”

She’s silent for a moment. “The leader was a teal named Tyzias.”

Your eyes are hot with tears. “I knew her. We met because she tripped on the sidewalk while carrying a shitload of her homework, and I helped her pick it all up when it went everywhere. She had a matesprit named-”

“Stelsa,” Vriska mutters. “Holy shit. She worked closely with some jades who lead their little army. They caused a hell of a lot of damage to the Empire before it all went down, I’ll give them that.”

Neither of you speak for a long moment, which you appreciate as you try and hold your messy self together. The longer you think about your old friends and all the good times you had with them, the more you’re certain about what you want to do. 

_They deserve to be here._

Your blood pressure spikes just thinking about it. 

It’s Vriska who puts your thoughts into words. “You want to go back and help them win the rebellion.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fucking crazy.”

“Yeah.”

She scooches over to you so she can stare down into your soul. “If we combine our resources and collaborate back and forth between the past and the future, we can make it so less people die. We could even take out that pathetic bitch of an Heiress they had back in the day. With your powers…”

“It’s possible I could compact time itself to create a world where we… where we can make things right. We could even help Feferi…”

You can’t bring yourself to say it in case you jinxed something, but by the look on Vriska’s face, she knows what you mean. 

“It could work,” she breathes. 

Slowly, you sit back up. Your heart was pounding so hard you felt it in your skull. “How do you think the others would feel about it?”

“Oh, they’d shit themselves,” Vriska snorts. “A full-scale rebellion across time and space?”

“True.”

“But _it could work!”_ she repeats, staring into empty space. 

“And they’d have a huge advantage they never had before. Me,” you say, talking to yourself more than to Vriska. You’d created this universe with your own power. It was time to protect it. “Vriska, I need to go before I chicken out. Tell the others what’s happening and that I’m sorry if this all goes to shit.”

“Wait!”

You look back at her as she grabs your arm, claws digging into the fabric of your hoodie. “I… you need supplies. No frickin’ way you’re going anywhere without at least a hydration flask.”

You know what she’s trying to say, and your chest fills up with all the warmth of a bonfire. God, you love this absolute bitch of a kid. 

Vriska drags you to your feet, and then you’re both sprinting for her hive. 

Amazingly, you don’t die trying to keep up with the cerulean as you charge up the stairs to her respiteblock together. You’re still out of breath by the time you reach the top, though, but Vriska’s already grabbing a backpack and tossing shit into it. 

“Get me that jacket off the door,” she orders as she tosses in what looks like a small medical kit. You obey and throw her the jacket, the black leather one with the bright red hood. 

She then waves you over, and you slip around her desk to see what’s up. In her hands is a black sheath, with a matching handle sticking out at the top. 

Vriska pulls the sheath off to reveal the blade: a brilliant silver-blue metal that nearly glowed in the darkness. It’s incredibly beautiful and very scary to look at. 

“I’ve had this thing forever, so I’m giving it to you, _okay?_ Don’t _fucking_ lose it. Press that little gray button at the top of the handle to heat up the blade. Good for starting fires and cauterizing wounds.” She shoves the jacket into the backpack and hands you the dagger. 

“Vriska, I don’t know what to say,” you begin, but she smacks you. 

“Shut up and strap it to your belt. You _better_ come back soon. I want a detailed report on everything. Single-spaced,” she snaps. 

You grin. “Yes, ma’am. I should be back, in like, ten nights. Maybe eleven.”

“Ten,” Vriska growls. “I’m coming for your ass otherwise.”

“Noted. Tell everybody I said hi.”

“Obviously.”

You reach into that little part of yourself, which in turn reaches back out into that chaotic river that is the flow of time. You throw the anchor down and wade upstream. It’s a little rougher than usual, but you won’t let that stop you. There was no turning back now. 

Time travel is always like trying to hit a moving target, but you have great aim, and when you find what you’re looking for you feel your face split into another huge smile. There’s nothing different about this part of the river than any other, but you _know._ When it comes to the people you care about, you always know. 

Everything feels more real to you than it has in years. Two moons shine even brighter in the sky, the chilly air stinging your face, and you’re no troll but it still feels like you’re going home. 

You open your eyes. 

“Ten nights,” you say to Vriska, and you let yourself fall through the current. 

  
  



	2. Of Broken Bones and Coming Home

You open your eyes, and the first thing you see is a city. 

It’s not just any city, that you conclude within a second of assessing the familiar shape of the uptown skyscrapers. This is Thrashthrust, the hellhole you called home for the better part of seven months. From your vantage point, you can see some poor bastard’s hive is on fire, and sirens are going off in the distance. A billboard with Trizza’s sneering mug lights up the entirety of some ghetto-ass looking street in Outglut.

You’ve never been so happy to be home. 

The first thing you want to do is march your butt down this hill and find the first person you know. Tact be damned, you need a friendly face and a hug. 

But that wouldn’t do. If the wrong troll saw you, word would get back to the Heiress that the alien is back and you'd be dead faster than anybody could say “culling drone”. You aren’t just here to hang out and get high with Cirava, not anymore. No, you are back to help start a revolution. Everybody knows what happens to revolutionaries on Alternia. 

Upon scanning the horizon, a familiar mountainside greets you, and even from several miles away you spot the conveniently dense forest that could probably hide a whole other city in it. Or a fleet of drones. 

Or a cave. 

_ Perfect. I’ll be there soon, guys.  _

You set off, navigating the Alternian thicket like you’d never even left in the first place. You don’t want to teleport out of fear you accidentally end up ten sweeps in the future and on one of the moons or whatever. 

The lightness in your heart only lasts for so long, however, when you realize you have literally no idea what you’re going to tell your friends. What, you got kidnapped by a  _ god?  _ You accidentally got kicked out of reality as everybody who’s normal knows it and got forced into another time in place to befriend a bunch of human kids? Holy hell, did you think you could just waltz back into everybody’s lives like nothing ever happened? 

“I fucking hate myself,” you mutter. 

But seriously, what was the plan? Show up at the entrance and hope that whatever jade was on guard duty didn’t kill you on the spot? Granted, you’re pretty sure you can’t die permanently, but it would sure throw a wrench in your plans if  _ Wanshi _ showed up to see what the fuss was all about and saw your dead body on the ground.

Well. If somebody other than one of your friends was there, you’d just have to do what you do best and sweet-talk them into letting you live. The cloister was pretty tight-knit and you’d spent a lot of time down there helping with the grubs, so as long as you didn’t do anything stupid…

Five minutes turned into twenty, then forty, and before you knew it a whole hour had passed, according to the watch John gave you not too long ago. Another rotation of the minute hand passed after that one, and at last you found yourself looking up the path that led to the main entrance to the caverns. You’d walked up this trail more times than you could count on both hands. 

Your legs are killing you from the hike, so you take the opportunity to park your ass on a nearby boulder to take a breather. Despite how badly you need to go to your friends, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it just yet. 

Maybe some rehearsal would calm your nerves.

You clear your throat and take a deep breath. “Well, hey, guys… I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to leave, I promise. I was kidnapped. No, I’m okay. Sort of. I missed you, I missed all of you so damn much. I’m sorry.”

Even in the quiet forest, your words sound empty. A lump grows in your throat. 

_ God damn it. Just go up there. Go to them! _

Your hackles tingle again, but unlike when you were with Vriska on her ship, this wasn’t the gaze of someone you knew and (mostly) trusted that was on you. 

Everything happens in the span of a second. 

A snarl rips the air as something huge, white, and furry lunges out from the cover of the forest. Vriska’s dagger was out of its sheath and in your hand before you could even breath. As you ducked and the animal sailed past you, you lash out with the blade and yelp when the force of it dragging through thick hide and flesh nearly rips it from your hand. 

You turn as the animal lands and whips around to face you, terrifyingly agile for its size. Your heart nearly falls out of your ass when you recognize that familiar broad head and beady black eyes.  _ Oh, fuck me.  _

The cholerbear snarls in rage at both having missed its prey and having a decent cut across its shoulder. It charges again, and something you learned about bears a long time ago flashes through your brain. 

_ Stand your ground. Make yourself look as big as possible. Scream and yell.  _

Praying to the Mirthful Messiahs that this wasn’t going to end with the cholerbear just chomping your ass in half like a steak, you jump up on your boulder and scream so hard your throat hurts. 

Amazingly, the huge beast slows. Rearing up to its hind legs, it looks you dead in the eye and sniffs at you. You stare back at it, teeth bared and hopefully conveying that you were definitely not on the menu for tonight. 

You didn’t want to kill it in case this was some kid’s lusus, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t. 

There wasn’t enough time to zap out of the way. One second you’re eye-to-eye with this massive son of a bitch, and the next a giant paw is coming down at your head.

The world spins around you. You hit something hard, a tree, before dropping to the ground with your left side on fire. The sensation is familiar enough for you to instantly know you’ve broken a rib or five. 

You’re going to lose, sure enough as the moons will rise again tomorrow, but before you can die you lift your head and screech at the cholerbear in rage. When you come back to life, you’re going to yeet that thing into the nearest black hole. 

The cholerbear thunders towards you like a tank, and you brace for the tear of fangs through skin and bone. 

One second passes, then another. 

A loud whine pierces your eardrums. You roll your head over to see the cholerbear staring at you-- no, something  _ behind _ you. 

Somebody screams. The voice is familiar. The cholerbear hauls furry ass back down the mountainside, followed by a gangly figure in an ankle-length skirt. The figure, a girl(?) skids to a halt at the edge of the clearing before turning back and sprinting towards you. She falls to her knees; you hear the impact through the ground. Strong hands turn you over. 

A spectacled, tear-stained face is the last thing you see before you lose consciousness. 

<>

Your name is LYNERA SKALBI and

oh, oh shit, no, no, nonono, this isn’t happening, not now!!!

Please, please stay  _ alive, _ you have to stay alive!!!

_ please _

The girl who alerted you to the smell of cholerbear is still standing at the entrance, probably still surprised that you just took off on her like that, but when you stumble back into sight with a bloody alien in your arms her eyes go very, very wide. 

Shock, wonder, and then  _ recognition.  _ She knows who this is. 

“Go,” is all she says before you take off running.

The alien’s tiny frame feels like nothing against your chest, like at any moment they might slip away. You hold them tighter and force yourself to run even faster. No, you weren’t going to lose your friend again.  _ Never _ again. 

Three tunnels down, one to the right, two lefts, down four flights of stairs. You all but bust down the door to your study and grab a blanket with one hand, supporting the alien with the other arm, before tossing it over the loungeplank. You pull off their backpack and set them down as carefully as you can. They’re still unconscious. They’re not moving. The coppery reek of their blood is growing stronger and stronger every time you breathe. 

With your bloodpusher in your throat, you lean over and press your ear to their chest. The steady thumping of a pulse helps you to breathe, even though there’s no color in your friend’s already pale face. Fuck. You’d helped them treat injuries in the past; their species wasn’t as durable as yours and they got banged up a lot, but you know nothing about how to help with something like  _ this.  _ For all you knew, they were already dying. 

Something like ice freezes in your guts. No, that wasn’t going to happen. 

You suck in another huge breath and analyze what just happened. You had found them underneath a sprucesteel tree, and they weren’t unconscious yet but getting close. Cholerbears liked to toss their prey around before eating it. 

Silently begging your friend’s forgiveness for the invasion of privacy, you yank up their hoodie to expose their bare torso. Unfortunately, you find what you’re looking for on their left side. Everything from the armpit to their hip was a mess of blood and black and purple bruises. Yep, they’d been thrown against that damn tree. 

Good news: you knew that ribs mostly healed on their own, or at least troll ribs. Bad news: they were still bleeding their strange alien copper-blood, a  _ lot _ of it, and if the wrong troll saw that then the both of you would be in trouble. You’d gladly stab a bitch to protect your best (platonic) friend, but still… 

_ They need stitches, _ you conclude. 

You do not know how to do stitches. 

But there is somebody you know who can. 

Any other time, you’d be cringing away at the thought of going to  _ him _ for help, but this was your friend’s life on the line. If you needed to, you would drag that bastard down here by his horns. 

“I’ll be right back,” you promise the alien, and then once again you’re running like your life depends on it for the door. Flying back up the stairs, you take a right on the next level and sprint down the corridor to the last room on the left. 

No time for hesitation. You ball your hands into fists and rail on that door like it insulted the Mother Grub.  _ “LANQUE! _ Lanque, open the door! I  _ know _ you’re in there!”

Something bangs from inside the respiteblock, and a muffled curse is all the warning you get before the door swings open to reveal a very pissed-off Lanque Bombyx, looking like he just woke up from a nap.

Any other time you’d feel a prickle of victory at catching Lanque in his sweatpants, no signature eyeliner to be seen, but now was not that time. 

“I need your help,” you get out. 

“What the hell? Why me?” he spits. “You  _ know _ I’m on duty first thing tomorrow-”

_ “I don’t care! _ You know first aid, right?” you hiss, shoving your face right up against his. 

He jolts back, lips peeling back to reveal wickedly sharp fangs, but then his eyebrows furrow. Something on your face must have told him what he needed to know, because he signals you to wait with one pointer claw before darting back into his respiteblock. Not three seconds later he emerges with a mediculler kit and an ice pack. 

You take off, trusting him to keep up with you. You’ve never been more grateful for everybody else to have been off doing whatever. If Bronya saw you two right now,  _ actually working together _ she’d probably go into bloodpusher failure and die on the spot. 

The second you open the door Lanque stiffens, and you know he’s smelling the blood. You shove past him and rush over to your friend. The blanket you’d tossed over the loungeplank has a decent-sized blood stain underneath the alien. 

You hear him cautiously slink inside, and then a shocked yell reverberates off the walls. 

He’s on his knees beside you before you even have the time to jump, eyes wide with horror. “What--  _ how?! _ Fuck, why is there so much blood?”

You’re completely taken aback. Lanque had been close with the alien, too? How come you had never heard about this? 

“Their left side,” you say. Lanque pushes the hoodie up and growls. Setting the mediculler kit and the ice pack down, he shoves his arms underneath the alien’s shoulders and legs and picks them up, before rotating them around so that their injured side is facing you and Lanque. With a surprising amount of precision, he then proceeds to wiggle their arm out of the hoodie sleeve and tuck it out of the way. 

“Hand me the scissors, I need to get the sports bra off,” he orders. 

“You  _ what?” _

“The gash goes underneath the fabric.”

You splutter something incoherent, feeling your face heating up, but you pop open the mediculler kit and hand him the scissors. He takes them from you and cuts through the sports bra in two clean swipes. Then, he grabs a rag from the kit and starts cleaning away the blood from the gash. 

“Go ahead and bandage that other cut below it. That one doesn’t need stitches,” Lanque mutters. Keeping the rag pressed against the gash on the alien’s upper torso, he grabs a small container with the needles in it. Somehow, he holds the needle steady between his fangs, and with his free hand he threads the string through the top and ties it off. The small part of your thinkpan that isn’t losing its shit over your injured friend is a little impressed (how on Alternia did he learn how to do that?), but you decide you’d made him teach you how to do that later. Thankfully, by the time you clean the other lesser wounds they aren’t bleeding nearly as much, and you bandage them up without a problem. 

It takes several long moments for Lanque to stitch up the gash. Ultimately, you decide it’s for the best that your friend is unconscious at the moment, because that  _ really  _ looks like it hurts.

You can’t help but wince when Lanque tugs on the thread to tighten the bonds. Immediately you expect him to taunt you for it, but when you glance up at him it looks like he’s in pain, too. It’s such an unexpected sight you nearly freeze in place. 

He finally ties off the stitches, tapes a cooling bandage over it to numb the surrounding skin, and grabs another blanket to throw over them. 

Then, you just… sit together. 

The longer wand on the alien’s timeteller moves several ticks to the right before Lanque breaks the silence. 

“Where did you find them?”

“... Natiri said she smelled cholerbear and blood. I went outside to investigate and found them half-unconscious underneath a sprucesteel tree, with the cholerbear about to kill them. I chased it off and brought the alien to my study. Then I went to go get you because I don’t know how to do stitches,” you tell him. 

Lanque nods and then presses his forehead to the alien’s shoulder. 

Again, you’re stunned by how much Lanque seems to care about the alien. “Were… are you two close? I didn’t realize you kept in contact with them.”

“... I did. Up until they disappeared a few perigees later we’d hang out and go to parties. Bronya liked that I was friends with them because she was under the impression they would keep me out of trouble.” He snorts. 

“Did they?”

“More than I’d like to admit.”

You’re tempted to scold him for dragging  _ your _ beloved friend into his messes, but Lanque is still holding on to the alien like a lifeline, and so are you, and so for once you keep your mouth shut. 

“Daraya and Wanshi are going to be so happy,” you whisper. 

A smile makes Lanque’s fangs flash in the light of the bioluminescent fungi growing on your ceiling. “Our friend is back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much fun. The jades are easily my favorite trolls, and they'll definitely play a MAJOR role in this story. I'm also huge slut for lore and Alternian history and this caste in particular makes it easy to bring up. 
> 
> *20s announcer voice* Will our favorite Reader wake up soon? Could Lanque and Lynera learn to fucking get along? Find out next on Riverbound!


	3. Of Studies and Explanations

You are THE GUARDIAN again, and you feel like a whole army of Chuck Norris clones used you as their punching bag. 

This in itself is not out of the usual, given your lifestyle and who you are as a person, but when you try and move to get up a stabbing pain tears down your left side. You suck in a sharp breath, which also turns out to be a horrible idea as your broken ribs scream profanity into your soul. God  _ damn _ it, what-

Everything comes back to you before you even finish that thought. 

The cholerbear. Somebody saved you, and then… brought you somewhere? 

You force your eyes open. The ceiling is spotted with bioluminescent fungi that fascinates you into almost ignoring your wounds. A blanket is draped over your body, which is nice because it’s kind of cold in here. 

A  _ jade green _ blanket. 

Wait, is this…? 

Something lifts from your lower shoulder, and you look over to see a familiar handsome face staring back. His slow smile lights up the whole room. 

_ “Lanque,” _ you get out. 

“The one and only. Welcome back to the land of the living, darling,” he says softly. 

Despite the massive amount of pain you’re in you can’t help but grin right back. Lanque had been one of the last friends you had made on Alternia, and while you two weren’t best buddies or anything you’d ended up being his unofficial date every time he needed somebody to go with to a party. The first time was to make it up to him for snitching to Bronya, and then it just kind of snowballed from there. You needed somebody to show you how to have a good time, and he needed somebody to help drag his drunk ass back to the caverns in the morning. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship. 

“I’d give you a hug, but I can’t really move right now. Did you save me?” you ask. 

He shook his head. “No. Lynera found you nearby after a cholerbear threw you into a tree. You needed stitches so she came and got me.”

_ Stitches? _ Damn. Carefully, you reach over and feel your side. From the bottom of your armpit to about one-quarter of the way down your side was a bandage, and underneath the bandage you can feel something thick holding the broken skin together. It’s so sore to the touch you instantly regret moving at all. 

Lanque scowls and bats your arm away. “Don’t, I worked hard on that. Two of your ribs are broken on the same side, too, so don’t even think about trying to run off again.”

“Yessir,” you snipe nasally, doing your best imitation of a freshly-recruited private responding to their drill sergeant. Lanque gives you a look that would have killed a lesser Guardian. 

Something about what he just said finally gets processed in your brain. An extremely important question almost has you leaping off the couch in a panic as you fully turn to face him, wincing as you do so. “Oh,  _ shit!  _ Lanque, you were the last person I saw before I disappeared, right? How long have I been gone?”

Dark green eyes widen almost comically. “You mean you don’t  _ know?” _

“No, I  _ don’t know, _ why would I ask if I don’t frickin’ know?” you snarl.

“It…” Lanque shakes his head. “Babe, it’s been nearly six perigees.”

_ Six perigees?  _ That was over a _ full fucking year! _ “I what?!  _ Please _ say sike, dude, I am begging you. Lanque,  _ no.” _

A large hand splays out across your chest and pushes you back down into the couch. “Stay. Down. It’s been six perigees, four weeks, and three nights since you disappeared. I know because Daraya keeps count.”

“Oh my God, I’m gonna go find a nice ray of sunshine and roast myself to death,” you moan. “I can’t believe I fucked up that bad.”

“Look, I don’t know what happened to you, but I know that whatever happened wasn’t your fault. I know you never would have left us on purpose,” Lanque insists. 

You grab the pillow closest to you and scream into it for ten seconds straight. Then, you fluff it out and put it back where it was. 

After you take a couple more deep breaths, you move on to the next most important thing. “You said Lynera saved me from the Cholerbear? She wasn’t injured, was she?”

Lanque snorts. “Of course not. Any animal with half a brain cell knows to not mess with us. Where there’s a jadeblood, there’s a cloister not too far away.”

“Good.” If somebody had gotten injured because you were being stupid you would have never been able to forgive yourself. “Thanks for stitching me up.”

“You’re more than welcome. Don’t make me have to do it again.”

“No promises.”

Lanque rolls his eyes, but there’s no exasperation behind it. He doesn’t meet your gaze, either, even when you turn your head to fully look at him. 

“What?” you finally ask. 

“... What happened to you?” 

He’s being patient, and you appreciate that. Not just anybody got to see this side of Lanque. 

You then begin to realize how badly  _ all _ of your friends will want to know why the hell you up and dropped off the face of Alternia. 

“Isn’t that the million dollar question?” you say, morbidly amused by your entire situation. “It’s a hell of a story. I want to tell it with everybody here, though, because I only want to have to tell it once. Some parts are going to be really bad and I  _ will _ cry and make it awkward for everybody.”

Lanque nods, staring off to somewhere far away. 

“And once my ribs heal, we’ll go crash some rich fuck’s party like old times. I’ll introduce you to some of my other friends, too. I think you and Tagora would get along famously,” you add. 

One corner of his lips twitches. 

“He’s a lawyer and one of the slimiest bitches I know on this planet. One time at his hive, I put on this lotion that made my skin glow, because I could, and he took me outside so I could see the full effect. His black crush lives nearby and walks up to Tagora to antagonize him or whatever. He didn’t see me until I was like ten feet away because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He, his name is Galekh, and he’s this huge indigo guy,” you start giggling like an idiot even though your ribs feel like they’re actively trying to escape your body. “He took off running and shrieking like a wiggler. That dumbass thought I was a  _ rainbow drinker.” _

That did it. Lanque fell over, muffling his laughter into a pillow.

The fact you got  _ Lanque Bombyx _ to crack up over some stupid story was well worth the agony in your side, but you decided calming down was the best course of action before you passed out again. You still couldn’t stop smiling, though. 

It’s a couple of minutes before the two of you can look at each other without losing it. God, you had missed this so much. Just… hanging out with somebody you cared about because you could, not because you were being the puppet of some god, or because you were a lonely little gremlin with nothing better to do. 

Lanque chills out when he sees you flinch every time you snicker. “Alright, darling, you got me. It’s good to have you back; it’s all  _ dreadfully  _ boring when you’re not around.”

“Call me the mitochondria, because I’m the powerhouse of this cell,” you agree. 

“I have no idea what that means, but sure. Listen, Lynera went to go get the others just before you woke up, so I think-”

A door slams in the distance, and by the sound of it it’s the one in the closest stairwell. The echo of swift pattering feet follows. 

“Good timing,” you say, but your mouth is dry.

Lanque nods and squeezes your shoulder. 

The lock on the study door turns. Lynera slips in, sees that you’re awake, and she covers her mouth as her pretty eyes fill with tears. She’s  _ here, _ and right behind her are Bronya, Daraya, and Wanshi. 

If it wasn’t for Lanque holding you back you know your stupid ass would have launched right off the couch to run to them. You must look like shit, sweaty and bloodstained and countless little scratches everywhere. There’s a new scar on your exposed right forearm from when Dirk tried to teach you how to swordfight. Your hair has grass in it, and you’re pretty sure you lost an alarming amount of weight during your travels. Whoops. 

The first one to move is Bronya, who comes forward to stand beside Lynera, whispering your name like she can hardly believe what she’s seeing. She’s still regal and beautiful, and you smile when you notice her increasingly anxious gaze flit across the cuts, the bruises and blood. 

Wanshi’s jaw is pretty much on the floor. Wait a damn minute, is she taller now? Is she…  _ no way. _ She’s up to Daraya’s shoulders. Your baby grew up while you were gone. 

She grew up, and you weren’t there, and  _ fuck, _ you think you’re going to cry-

Lanque signals for her to come over, and she obeys while furiously blinking back tears. She grabs his outstretched hand first before taking yours. Delicately, with a cautiousness you’ve never seen in a kid that young, she climbs over your legs to curl up next to you on your good side. You wrap an arm around her and pull her close. Her hands form fists in your hoodie. 

You look up, and Daraya is still staring at you. 

_ Please come here, honey, please. I won’t leave you again.  _

“Daraya,” you rasp. 

Abruptly, she stiffens, sucking in a shaky breath, and then she’s storming over to you with her fangs bared. She goes down on her knees with a  _ thump _ that would have easily broken a human leg. The sound rattles in your jaw. 

You reach out to her, and then she’s wrapping both arms around you and sobbing hysterically. Christ, you’ve never heard anybody cry like that before. It sends shards of cold metal raking through your chest. They hurt more than a broken rib ever could. 

Your face is wet with tears, too, but it feels damn good to let it out. 

:::

For a long while you just let these kids cry on you, and sometimes you’re awake and sometimes you’re in that gray area between consciousness and sleep. You hear Bronya and Lynera talking to themselves about something, but you’re too out of it to care, and if something juicy was going on you trusted Lanque to fill you in on the tea. 

“Psst. Hey.”

You smile and crack open an eye. “Hey yourself.”

Wanshi stares at you in awe, her cheek squished up against your stomach. “I can’t believe we’re in Lynera’s study. Lanque always told me she kept dead bodies in here, but I don’t see any.”

You side-eye Lanque, who gives you his best disarmingly attractive grin. Unfortunately, it works. 

Daraya raises her head and wipes away some smudged mascara. “No, that would be too obvious. She totally keeps the bodies in the empty seadweller pools.”

“Guys, come on,” you protest. 

Wanshi sticks her tongue out at you, and Daraya snickers wetly into your hoodie. 

“... Like, really? If I was a jadeblood, and I killed somebody, why would I keep the body  _ in the caverns?” _ you ask as seriously as you can. 

All three of them turn away to pretend to cough into their sleeves when Bronya and Lynera look over at the sound of Daraya letting out the most undignified snort you’ve ever heard. You accidentally giggle as well and let out a pained squeak when your side flares in response. 

The two head jades are on you in a flash. 

“Alright, you three, quit it,” Bronya orders, but she’s smiling, too. “The faster their ribs heal, the sooner they can rejoin us and their other friends. How are you feeling?”

“Like the time I met Nihkee Moolah at a muscular theatre event and she wiped the floor with my carcass,” you tell her cheerfully. “Actually, that hurt way worse, so I think I’m good.”

“... That sounds like you had a very interesting night.”

“Oh, it was.”

Lynera peered worriedly from around Bronya’s shoulder. “We’re so happy to have you back, but… why did you have to go?”

“I didn’t want to,” you sigh. “I was kidnapped.”

Five pairs of reflective yellow eyes snap to you in a heartbeat. 

“You what?” Lynera shrieked. Lanque hisses at her to be quiet, and she glares at him before sitting down next to a wide-eyed Daraya. 

Looking at your friends, you realize that in order to tell the entire story you would have to start from the end, not the beginning. “Look, what I’m about to tell you… it’s going to sound completely insane. But I swear on whatever trolls hold holy that I  _ am _ telling the truth.”

Bronya’s lips part, like she wants to say something, but then she just nods. 

So you tell them. 

No matter how hard you try, you can’t bring yourself to tell them everything-- the fact that you’re now the First Guardian of this universe, or how you pulled it away from the rest of the universe to protect it, or the extent of Ultimate Dirk’s full power. You also don’t tell them about the rebellion they’re about to fight in, and how only fifteen sweeps in the future their names will be erased from history, only to be remembered in the most secretive of documents. 

You do tell them about meeting your other friends on Earth, as well as your adventures on future Alternia. You tell them about how you saved both planets from playing a deadly game that would have destroyed both civilizations. You even manage to explain the extent of Doc Scratch’s manipulation, the abuse you endured at his hands, how you eventually escaped and lost your memory in the process. 

This part totally fucks with the trolls. Wanshi dives under the blanket when you recall the mirrors on all of the hallway walls that watched you like eyes, no matter where you went in that hellish dimension. Bronya and Lynera look absolutely horrified. Daraya starts staring at a pillow resting on your leg like she wants to shred it to pieces. Lanque is stone-faced and still. 

“... and so I finally get away from Ultimate Dirk, and then I go make sure Regular Dirk is okay, because he’s a good kid. Then I go make sure everybody else is okay. I was terrified that he or Scratch was going to come back and… hurt people.” You don’t mention how you then peaced back out to the void of space for who knew how long. “When I was certain that the kids were going to be okay I decided to see if I could still go back in time to see you guys. And I could.”

A long, long moment of silence follows that. 

Daraya is, of course, the first one to break it. “... Holy fucking shit.”

“Daraya, language,” Bronya growls, but her eyes are haunted. 

“Yeah, I’m going to need a drink after this,” Lanque mutters, viciously scrubbing his face with both hands. “You’re telling me that the multiverse theory is correct, gods are real, and you have near absolute control of time and space.”

“Uh-huh. Wait, trolls have the multiverse theory too? Wow.” You made a mental note to tell that to Rose so she could have another excuse to talk with Kanaya. 

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. If any of those two  _ monsters _ try and show up, I’ll shove all of my knives through their throats,” Lynera snarls, tearing holes in the cushion she’s gripping with her claws. 

Wanshi stirs from underneath the blankets, and one little hand shoots into the air to give you a thumbs-up. 

You smile and pat her arm. “Don’t worry, I don’t think they’ll be coming for me again. They had their fun.”

Bronya sighs heavily and claps her hands together. “Well, it’s late morning, and I know Daraya and Wanshi have class tomorrow-”

Wanshi shrieks in protest and Daraya turns to face her leader with an ugly glare. “But-!”

“No buts! We’ll all take turns keeping an eye on our friend while they recover. I know we’re all very excited to have them back, and perhaps you can use that as motivation to work harder during schoolfeeding so you can come visit as soon as you can,” Bronya declared. Her tone left no room for arguments. 

Reluctantly, Wanshi and Daraya disentangle themselves from you and gave you the longest hugs of your life. 

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” you promise. “Study hard, okay?”

Wanshi sniffles and nods, and you give her hand a squeeze before she shuffles away to wait for Daraya by the door. 

You reach out for Daraya and pull her into another embrace. She squeaks, a little caught off guard, but you hold her tight and whisper in her ear. 

_ “Text Tyzias.” _

She freezes, finally understanding.  _ “Got it.” _

You watch her go, proud as hell when you see her hold herself a little higher than when she came in. Bronya clasps your hands and does the same. The strain of holding it together for everybody else must have exhausted her, you think guiltily. You vow to be as small of a burden on your friends as absolutely possible. 

Lanque is the last to leave. He doesn’t say anything, but he does gently smooth the hair back from your face before heading out the door, turning the lights off as he goes. Your stomach flips around itself like a slinky. 

You try really hard to not think about that, and also the fact that he was the one to cut away at your sports bra so he could stitch you up. Yes, you know about that. Yee-haw. Oh, hey, the ceiling has a crack in it. 

Lynera calls your name from the other end of the study. “Do you need more blankets?”

“No, thank you, though!” You’re already falling back asleep. Everything that just happened over the course of the night hits you at once, leaving you utterly drained. 

The sound of something big being dragged over stone catches your attention before you can fall asleep. You look back to see Lynera in her nightgown-- she must have changed in the bathroom-- hauling a recuperacoon over to the couch.With practiced ease, she hops up and slips into the hole at the top. 

“Good morning,” she murmurs. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

In that moment, you knew that everything you went through to return to your friends was worth it. The injuries, the loneliness, the trauma. It was all worth it. You were sure of that. 

You close your eyes and let yourself be happy, just for a little while. “Me too. Good morning, Lynera.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I cry a little writing the part where MSPA reunites with Daraya and Wanshi? Perhaps. Also, Lanque is a bastard but he's also a great big brother. Bronya continues to be your Mom, and Lynera is silently stressed by having all these damn people in her room. Lol. 
> 
> So to clear a couple of things up: I headcanon MSPA to be AFAB, and they're nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. They're 100% human but with funky ass powers bc the Green Sun. We'll be learning more about their past as the story progresses. :)
> 
> Next chapter we'll have other trolls besides the jades show up!


	4. Of Interludes and Interviews

Your name is DARAYA JONJET, and for the first time in sweeps you wake up eager to start the night. There’s a strange sense of something holding you down to Alternia-- not like you’re being weighed down by grief, but as if you were only partially existing in this reality before the previous morning. Now, there’s all of you in one body to make up one whole troll. It’s absolutely incredible. 

Is this what feeling like a person is like? It  _ does _ kind of slap. 

Anyways, you rock up to class in your nicest pair of combat boots and your favorite flannel, ready to get everything over with so you could go see your friend. Lynera had texted you right after you woke up saying that they were stable and on painkillers, but you were still itching to go see them. It’s not like you were going to be able to focus, anyways. 

The second you sit down the girls next to you turn around. One of them is Aviann, who mostly took care of midblood wigglers, and Natiri, who was on guard duty when Lynera saved your friend. 

“Is it true?” Aviann whispers. You nod. 

“How are they?” Natiri still looks a little frazzled from having to deal with a hysterical Lynera dragging in a half-dead alien. You don’t blame her. 

“They’ll be okay. Broken ribs and they’re really underweight,” you mutter under your breath. “If they were a troll they’d be dead. Apparently their species is pretty resistant to starvation.”

Aviann’s eyes grow round. “That’s so cool. Your alien is  _ tough.” _

You feel a flash of pride. “Hell yeah, they are.”

“How long before they heal? I wanna see them again,” Natiri begs. 

“After class I’ll take you to them. They don’t want to self-isolate.”

Aviann looks even more impressed. “Wow, really? So they’re not afraid of being culled?”

“Nah. They’re not afraid.” You can’t help but brag a little. “One time they fought a purpleblood with a cerulean friend of theirs and they  _ won.” _

Now both of them are wide-eyed. Ceruleans are pretty strong, but it would still take two or three of them to take out a clown. 

“Hey, back row! No talking!” the girl up front yells.  _ Ugh.  _

You look at your worksheet that has been waiting for you on your desk. If you stare at the letters for too long they start going a little fuzzy, on account of you getting like ten ticks of sleep before waking up for schoolfeeding. You’d been up all day texting back and forth with Tyzias, and then Stelsa, and then eventually somebody made a group chat with all the teals in it so you could update everybody on what was going on. Tagora called you to ask when they could come see the alien, and you actually felt bad listening to the desperation in his voice, hoarse from lack of sleep. Nobody besides jadebloods were allowed in the caverns, so you had to tell them it might be a couple of wipes before they could walk. The little kid called Tirona threw a full-blown temper tantrum upon hearing that. 

In another chat, you and Tyzias discussed plans for the three of you to meet up so you could tell your friend about the rebellion. Namely, how you and Tyzias were basically the leaders of a (very) small group of people who believed that Alternia could be a better place. It’s messy and honestly kind of pathetic but it’s  _ something _ and you really think the alien would be really excited to see that you’re trying to make a change. 

The worksheet is taken care of by copying off Aviann in exchange for telling her more about your friend’s physiology. She’s fascinated by their unusually strong pack-bonding instinct, is confused as to how they could be a diurnal species, and definitely doesn’t believe you when you tell her that they’re a great swimmer. 

“They don’t have fins, do they? Or gills? How are they supposed to breathe?” she hisses. 

“For the last time, dude, they’re a  _ mammal. _ They don’t have fins or gills, they hold their breath while underwater. Look, I’ll take you to them sometime, they’re really nice,” you retort. “Also, I think the answer for number fifteen is X.”

“No, it’s Z. And fine, but if the drones come after me for associating with an alien I’m throwing your skinny ass under the omniscuttlecoach.” 

“Yeah, whatever.”

You look up at the timeteller and groan. The longer wand has only moved twenty ticks, and you’re getting handed a packet as thick as your little finger. 

Fuck.

:::

You have no idea how you make it to the end of the session, but you do know that when the bell rings you’re up and out of your seat, almost forgetting your backpack in the process. The chick in charge of the class shouts after you about something, but you don’t care, because  _ hell yes you’re going to see your friend and nobody can stop you.  _

Aviann and Natiri catch up with you on longer legs, but you manage to keep the lead in order to show them the way to Lynera’s study. Lynera is a very private person, so most of the others don’t even know where the study is, much less the fact her respiteblock is connected to it. You found that out when you got high a sweep ago and decided to go snooping around in the middle of the day. 

“Won’t Skalbi be pissed?” Natiri whispers, looking around anxiously. 

“Nah. Me and like a dozen other people were in there last morning and she lived,” you say casually. Of course when you try the door, it’s locked, but you have compressed tree slice clips and nimble claws. 

You don’t get very far. A couple seconds into jiggling the lock the door flies open to reveal a very cross Lynera Skalbi, hands on her hips and brows furrowed into a tight line. 

Natiri squeaks in terror, ears flat against the sides of her head. “Oh, hi, Lynera-!”

“We wanna see them,” you interrupt before Natiri can start blabbering. 

Lynera’s gaze flickers over the three of you. “You two are friends with the alien as well?”

“Um, we’ve talked a few times,” Aviann offers. “One time they covered my shift when I had thorax pox.”

Natiri’s obviously still too scared to say anything, so you duck under Lynera’s arm and youth roll right into the study. Lynera squawks in protest. Aviann and Natiri follow your example, judging by Natiri’s yelp when she scrapes her horns on the floor. 

You manage to not kill yourself on the way down the stairs, and sure enough, when you reach the bottom you see your friend curled up on the loungeplank. They’re awake, and when they see you their eyes light up. 

“Hi, Daraya,” they say, their voice warm like a snuggleplane. Something in your brain responds by bringing forth almost-buried memories of being much smaller, safely wrapped up against the belly of something soft and furry. 

“Hi,” you manage. There’s a tightness in your chest that both takes away and feeds the pain of having missed them so much for so long. “How are the ribs?”

“Still there.” Round white teeth flash in a cheesy grin. You roll your eyes to the heavens above, but you’re relieved to see that they still have the same crappy sense of humor they had when you meant them. 

You feel the air displace behind you, and the alien looks around you curiously. “Oh, hello. I didn’t know you were bringing friends. It’s… Natiri, and…?”

“Aviann. Aviann Inkani,” says the younger of the two, adjusting her glasses and peering owlishly down at them. “You covered my shift once when I had thorax pox.”

The alien’s lips twitched up in a smile. “Oh, now I remember you. Glad to see you’re feeling better, kiddo.”

“Thanks,” Aviann said, looking a tad flustered, before recovering enough to whip out a small green notebook. “Um, Daraya mentioned a couple of interesting things concerning your physiology earlier tonight, and I was wondering if you were feeling well enough to do a short interview? For science.”

“Aviann! Natiri! Daraya!” Lynera comes huffing back into the study, looking steamed at the presence of more people around the injured alien. “They are  _ trying! _ To rest!”

“It’s totally okay, Lynera, I have literally nothing else to do. But it’s your study, so.” The alien blinks calmly up at her. Natiri stares in awe. 

Lynera hesitates, something in her eyes softening as she meets your friend’s gaze. “Alright. Come get me if you want to get back to sleep, though.”

“I will,” they promise. Lynera beams down at them before giving you the stink-eye on her way back up the stairs.  _ Sucks to suck, Skalbi.  _

Aviann is grinning ear-to-ear, and you can tell she’s having a difficult time restraining herself from jumping for joy. She’s wanted to be a scienterrorist as long as you’d known her. “Oh, wow, really? Thank you!”

“It’s my pleasure,” the alien promises, patting the side of the loungeplank. “Come sit down if you want.”

Aviann carefully approaches them and sits down a couple of feet away, with Natiri close behind. You smirk and pass them to sit down on the loungeplank with your friend. They’re about as dangerous as a dead squeakbeast at the moment, but your fellow classmates don’t know that. 

“What do you want to know?” the alien prompts, resting their head on their elbow. 

“I have a couple of questions regarding the general behavior of your species. You guys are called humans, correct?” Aviann asks. 

“We are.”

“Would you consider yourself to be, physically and otherwise, an average human?”

The alien raises their brows, thoughtful. “That’s a tough question. I’d have to say no. I have a couple of mental disorders, which the majority of humans don’t. You could say the circumstances of my situation prohibit me from… being associated with the norm.”

Aviann scribbles furiously in her notebook. “You seem very confident in admitting that you possess traits that could land somebody in trouble on Alternia. Do you think humans have a less intense fear response than trolls?”

“No. Humans are incredibly social creatures, much more than trolls. We have strong bonding instincts that urge us to protect one another, even if they’re strangers, disabled, dangerous, or even enemies. Granted, not all humans feel like this, but I’d say as a species we like to stick together,” they clarify. 

More scribbling. “How did humans evolve to be a colony, er, pack-based society?”

The alien smiles. “This is going to sound insane to you, but humans live together in families. Parents are the one to raise their children, or if the parents can’t for whatever reason then other adults will.”

Natiri’s jaw drops, and Aviann stops writing. “Are you saying that… adults and juveniles all live together?”

“We do.”

“So your lusii are… the two adults who combined their genetic material to create offspring?”

“That’s right. Adults take care of children.”

Even you’re blown away by this. “Earth sounds kind of terrifying.”

Your friend chuckles. “Not as much as Alternia, dude.”

Aviann taps her pencil to her notes a couple of times. You can practically hear the gears turning in her head. “Is this because you’re… mammals? Creatures who give live birth to their young are predisposed to wanting to nurture them, right?”

“Very good!” The alien looks genuinely impressed. “Believe me, I was just as weirded out by how you guys get kicked off-planet when you grow up.”

“Everybody knows adults are dangerous,” Natiri scoffs. 

“By my planet’s standards, I’m an adult. A very young one, though,” the alien points out. 

Both Natiri and Aviann do a double-take. 

“But… you’re so small,” Aviann says. 

“Some humans just don’t grow a whole lot.” They shrug. “It’s genetics.”

Aviann nods and writes more stuff down. “That’s all the questions I have right now. Thanks again, really.”

“You’re more than welcome.” You can see that your friend is starting to get tired, and you pat their leg. Natiri nods to you, and she pokes Aviann’s shoulder. Aviann glances reluctantly back at you and the alien as she gets up to follow Natiri. You give her the one-finger salute. The alien smiles and waves. 

“Bye,” they call after them. 

Natiri and Aviann wave and say goodbye as well, and then it’s just you and your friend again. Their eyes are closed, but you can tell from the rhythm of their breathing that they’re awake. 

“The teals know you’re back,” you tell them. 

Their hazel eyes snap open and fixate on you. “How are they?”

“Very happy to know you’re alive. Tirona has a bunch of memes waiting for your review, and Tagora basically cried. Don’t tell him I told you that, though.”

An exhausted smile makes its way onto your friend’s face. “You know, I think I’ll be ready to walk again tomorrow. Could you text Tyzias and let her know to meet me at the bottom of the mountain?” 

“Already?” You’re impressed. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

A strange feeling pangs in your bloodpusher as the alien closes their eyes. You aren’t used to being thanked. Before you can get up to leave, however, there’s a familiar knocking at the door. The alien jolts awake. 

Scowling, you stomp up the stairs to give whoever a piece of your mind for disturbing your friend’s sleep, but before you can get the door it opens on its own. 

It’s Bronya, and right beside her, wide-eyed, is Karako. 

Your anger dissipates at once. Karako had been out the past two nights; of course he missed the whole welcome-back shindig for your mutual pal. You nod to him and step aside to let him and Bronya pass. 

“Are you still taking visitors?” You hear Bronya ask kindly. Karako gives a high-pitched squeal of delight, and the alien’s laughter fills the whole study with pure joy. 

You feel yourself smile, and it stays with you the whole way back to your respiteblock. The first thing you were going to do was get all of your hivework done,  _ all _ of it, and then you were going to sleep early. 

Tomorrow was going to be a big night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a filler episode, with some bonus filler characters. You can't tell me Bronya, Lynera, Daraya, Lanque, and Wanshi are the only jades who knew about and interacted with MSPA. Also yay Karako!
> 
> We'll get to meet the teals next chapter. :)


	5. Of Sneaking Out, Rebelliously

You are THE GUARDIAN, and you are currently munching on the most delicious bowl of grubflakes to have ever existed. 

You have seen many things over the course of your travels, met all kinds of people and befriended them, been to places most could never even dream of. Space, time, and an entire universe have surrendered to your whim. The heart of an eldritch sun flowed through your veins not too long ago, and you through it. 

And yet, you have still to encounter anything as satisfying as a good breakfast. 

Yesterday was mostly spent sleeping, only waking up to eat a couple of times and talk to Daraya and her friends. Bronya had also brought Karako with her when she came to check in on you, which had been the highlight of your night. Like Wanshi, he had noticeably grown, and now had a couple of inches on you. There was a new depth to his gaze that had come with the passage of time. He almost looked like that… _entity_ you and Feferi spoke to at her palace. 

It was a little unnerving at first, but it had soon become apparent that this boy was still the same young clown you nearly threw hands with seadwellers for. He was still Karako. 

That much was obvious as you watch him and Wanshi plot out the next chapter of her _Soldier Purrbeasts_ fanfiction, with Wanshi arguing that Lionstar of ShadeCaste needs to be killed off and Karako drawing out Lionstar eating a bunch of other purrbeasts. It’s very detailed and anatomically correct. You wonder how Bronya even let those books into the caverns, and then you remember reading _Warriors_ as a kid on Earth. Those cute illustrations of cats running around in the woods on all of the covers did a great job of hiding the gorefest that raged within. 

Sitting next to you on the couch is Daraya, typing away furiously on her palmhusk, and Lanque, who is trying to judge how well your ribs are healing by poking your side. 

You dodge another perfectly manicured claw in time to see Daraya receive another text from Tyzias, saying that she and the others would be at the bottom of the mountain in an hour or so. “Tell her I said hi!”

“You’ll see her pretty soon,” Daraya says, a little confused. 

“Yeah, but I’m excited _-ow!_ Lanque, _quit it!”_

“I’m feeling for the break.”

“You’re gonna be feeling my fist up your flat ass if you don’t _stop.”_

“They said a bad word!” Wanshi yells. 

You freeze. Your mind races for a solution that doesn’t involve Bronya reaming you out for cussing in front of the kids. “If you don’t tattle on me you can say a bad word too.”

Her big black eyes widen. “Really?”

“Really.”

“‘Cause Lanque taught me a really good one!”

“I taught you nothing of the sort, young lady,” Lanque growls, slapping a hand over your mouth to shut you up. You contemplate licking it just to see how he would react. Better yet, you could throw your empty bowl at his head and see how thick troll skulls really are. 

Wanshi takes control of the situation by hopping up to you and leaning into your ear. _“Lususfucker.”_

You squeal into Lanque’s palm, and Daraya’s jaw drops. Even Karako looks impressed. 

_“Wanshi Adyata!”_ Lanque scolds, but the corners of his eyes lift in such a way that tells you he’s not actually angry. You wiggle out of his grasp and stand, taking a couple of slow breaths to test the pain. It’s still sore AF in there, but as long as you take it easy you’ll be fine. You’ve had a lot worse for a lot longer. 

Taking your bowl and putting in the sink by the bathroom, you turn to your friends and do your best impression of having your shit together. “Alright, so I know it’s only like a fifteen minute walk down to the bottom of the mountain, but I’m crippled so I say we head out early.”

“Bronya won’t be here to pick up Wanshi and Karako for an hour,” Lanque says, tapping the armrest he’s leaning on. 

“They could come with us. Tyzias is bringing Tirona, she’s around their age,” Daraya points out. 

“Won’t Bronya be mad?” you ask warily. The last thing you want to do is drag her student and her adopted clown son into a possible Situation™. It’s not like you’re going out tonight looking for trouble, but this _is_ Alternia. 

Lanque considers it, and then leaps to his feet with a smirk. “Nah. I’ll be coming with you guys, and I’ve taken the children out plenty of times.”

“Bronya didn’t-” Daraya begins to say, huffing in amusement, but Lanque cuts her off with a dramatic twirl of his suit jacket that slaps her in the face with a perfectly pressed sleeve. 

“Daraya, dear, if I don’t get out of these godforsaken caves soon I might actually lose my mind. Wanshi, Karako! Come, we’re going on an adventure.”

You watch with a smile as the kids look up with sparkling eyes and instantly abandon their project to scramble over to Lanque. Daraya glares up at the older jade, nose still scrunched up from being smacked, but finally heaves herself upright to follow. You join her as the five of you head out the door and bump your shoulder against hers. She must have grown a little as well, because the top of your head now barely reaches her jawline. 

The stairs are kind of a bitch, but you persevere long enough to get to the main level of the caverns. Your ribs are throwing a Karkat-worthy bitchfit, though, so when Lanque halts the group at the end of the corridor for some reason you don’t complain. 

“What?” Daraya mutters, impatient. 

“Hush. Just because we can leave the caverns doesn’t mean we’re supposed to, and Bronya is supervising tonight’s shift. Do _you_ want to explain to her who we’re going to meet?” he shoots back. 

There’s something in his voice that tells you there’s more to this than either of them are letting on. You want to ask them what’s up, but even Wanshi and Karako are silent, so you keep your mouth shut and trot after Lanque. Teleporting is sounding more and more appealing by the second, but you know you’re still a little high from the painkillers Lynera gave you before she left for work.

The next twenty minutes are spent dodging from building to building like you’re a group of spies trying to escape the government. It’s fun at first, but when Daraya has to yank you down behind a garbage bin to avoid being seen by a group of girls on their way to class, you wonder how often these trolls have to resort to sneaking around just for a glimpse of freedom. How many jades had never even had a friend that wasn’t of their own caste? How many haven’t seen the stars in the night sky, felt the wind in their hair, had the opportunity to pursue something they chose for themselves instead of being thrown into a life entirely dedicated to others? 

Kids raising kids. That’s what this was. 

The world outside of the caverns is cruel, devoid of justice and mercy for even those whose blood ran cold in their veins. But when you look at it, really _look,_ the caverns aren’t much better. It’s a prison with bioluminescent cells. 

You focus on keeping up with Daraya so you don’t get even more pissed off than you already are. Being angry would have to wait. Right now, you’re going to meet your friends. 

… This isn’t the way to the main entrance, though? Where are you guys going? 

Lanque answers your question by leading the way down an offshoot behind what you think is a storage unit. No more fungi grows to light the way, so you simply trust him to know where to go. There aren't many other options. In less than a minute it’s pitch black and strangely damp, and the temperature has dropped far enough to make you wish you’d brought that nice jacket Vriska gave you. 

“This is how I get out,” Lanque whispers. You hear his footsteps stop, so you stop as well. “It’s a bit of a climb, but it’s the fastest way to the surface besides the main entrance.”

Your heart sinks at the word _climb._ Also, you can’t see balls. “I’m assuming there’s another tunnel? I'm as good as blind down here.”

“You seriously can’t see? How is your species still alive?” Lanque chuckles. 

“Because we’re diurnal, pretty boy. We do our business with the light of our nice, not-lethal sun shining down on our backs. And just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I can’t do anything.” To prove your point, you take a careful step forward and feel for the walls of the tunnel. It’s narrow, and you can already feel the rock sloping up to the surface. 

_How the hell does Terezi do this?_

You feel the challenging spark of Lanque’s gaze on the back of your neck. Nice Boy hours were over, it seemed. Time to return to the regularly scheduled programming of roasting each other until he let you in behind those meticulously maintained emotional walls for a moment or two, or you doing something especially stupid to spite him. 

With one foot in front of the other, you lead the way into the darkness. 

Fifty steps in and you can tell that if you hadn’t taken the painkillers earlier you’d be on the ground crying. One hundred steps in you trip and almost eat shit. One-hundred and fifty steps, Lanque is right up in your business, trying to make you go faster. 

Keyword being _trying._ You wait until he’s got one foot up on the rock slab you’re standing on and pretend to trip again. He grunts and grabs the walls for support as you slam back into him, using the weight of your frankly magnificent ass to knock him off balance. 

“My bad, sorry,” you tell the blackness. 

“Do I need to carry you? Because I _will_ carry you. Like a little wiggler.”

“No, thank you. You can wait for the poor injured alien without self-combusting for a little while longer. Unless… Daraya? Kids? How are you guys holding up?” you call back. 

“We’re good! Take all the time you need!” Wanshi announces, giggling. 

“Yeah, dude. Don’t push yourself,” Daraya adds. 

“Honk!”

Lanque growls, and you grin.

Luckily, he doesn’t have the time to come up with a plan for revenge when Wanshi yells that she can see the end. You can’t see anything for another half-minute or so, but when you do you, moonlight illuminates the bend in the tunnel you’re rounding like a searchlight. The slope flattens out, much to the relief of your aching legs. 

The secret exit leads out underneath some huge tree you have no name for, shielded from sight by a thick layer of roots that twist all over the place. You squeeze through an opening in the mess and hop aside to let Wanshi and Karako through. Lanque hauls himself up and over through a bigger hole above you, and Daraya does the same. 

You take a moment to suck in fresh air. The trolls come to stand beside you, and together you all look out towards Thrashthrust. Two moons hang low in the sky, lighting up the planet below in shades of pink and green. 

It’s beautiful, but you know the kinds of danger that beauty can hide. 

Karako is the first one to hop off the ledge, with Wanshi close behind. You opt to carefully shimmy down as far as you can before sliding to the forest floor. You’re left breathless nonetheless as the impact sends stabs of pain through your torso, but you shake it off and follow the kids. Daraya and Lanque come up on either side of you to lend you support. 

“I’m fine, guys, really,” you protest. 

“I saw that flinch,” Daraya mutters. “Besides, if we show up with you limping all over the place the teals will have my ass.”

“You just want to impress Tyzias,” Lanque snickers. 

Daraya hisses like a feral cat, and you turn to her, interest peaked. “Wait. You and Tyzias?”

“No! We’re just friends!” she snarls, swatting at Lanque. 

Lanque has a knowing grin on his face, though, and he wraps an arm around your waist to lean down to your level. “They’re so pale it’s _disgusting.”_

You look back to a green-faced Daraya and wiggle your eyebrows. Daraya gives you and Lanque the finger and stomps ahead to catch up with the kids. 

“We gotta set them up,” you tell Lanque. “How far along are they?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

You want to demand more information than that, but then Wanshi calls out a greeting from ahead. Somebody farther down the path answers. 

“What’s with you and good timing?” you ask, your heart rising to your throat. Despite your ribs you quicken the pace, and when you don’t feel like you’re going to pass out you break into a jog. 

“Oh, so now you want to hurry it up?” Lanque snarks, but right now you’re more interested in seeing your friends again than coming up with a good comeback. 

You follow the path as it turns, and boom, there they are. 

Karako, Wanshi, and Tirona are all saying hi and introducing themselves, Daraya and Tyzias are hugging each other (Oh, worm?), and Stelsa and Tagora are standing back like proud parents, even if good old Gor-Gor looks a bit scandalized by all the pale stuff going on. 

It’s Stelsa who sees you first. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth and she squeals in delight. Tagora jumps at the noise and turns to see what she’s looking at before breaking out in the biggest smile you’ve ever seen on him, not the customer-service smile that’s all fangs but with his eyes as well. 

You manage to haul your crippled ass over to them in time for Tyzias to pull away from Daraya, spot you, and pull you into a desperate but careful embrace. Daraya must have told her about your injuries, which is great because you don’t think you would have survived a whole gang of teals jumping on you all at once. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she croaks. “Fuck, we searched everywhere for you but you were _gone_ and I thought you died somewhere all alone-”

You squeeze her tighter. “Hey, hey. I’m alive. I’m back.”

She sniffles and pulls back in time for Stelsa to wrap up the two of you in her ridiculously buff arms. Not for the first time, you can’t believe how much your friends missed you. It makes you feel so _whole_ to know that you have so many people who care about you, and at the same time you’re crushed with the guilt of knowing that they all thought you were dead. Damn. 

“Please, people, not in front of the children,” you hear Tagora complain, but his voice is a little thicker with emotion than you remember it being. You turn and stick your tongue out at him. 

“What about _me?”_ A frantic hand smacks your arm. “Hello? Gimme a hug, alien!”

“Hi, Tirona,” you laugh, reaching out behind you to bring her into the group. She squeaks in protest before letting it happen. 

“Better,” she mumbles into your hoodie. You graciously pretend you don’t see her using it to wipe away a stray tear. 

“Daraya told us everything and I could hardly believe it, it all sounds so… it sounds too _much,”_ Stelsa says, wrapping her arms around herself. “Before all of this the world was so much smaller, and now you’re back because you escaped from a bunch of gods!”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah,” you agree. 

Tagora pats your shoulder, which you know is his version of a hug. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. We’re just glad to have you back in one piece.”

Doc Scratch’s calm voice agrees somewhere in the back of your memories, overlaid by Dirk’s- no, not the goofy, lonely young boy you helped feel cared for, _the other one-!_ “Thanks, Gor-Gor. I’m glad to be back, too.”

“Well, there is one thing I hope you’re willing to share,” Tyzias begins hesitantly. “Daraya said something about you being able to do some… interesting stuff. For… ah, screw it. We all know why we’re here.”

You meet her sharp, tired eyes. “What’s that?”

“We’re rebels.”

All of the trolls turn to glare at Lanque. 

The tall jadeblood just shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “What? It needs saying. Words are powerful, you know.”

“Yes they are, Bombyx, which is why you need to be more careful with them,” Tyzias drones. 

“I can’t believe you guys are dragging me into this,” Tirona whines. 

Tagora gives her a withering look. “Hey, you wanted to come, kid.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I wanted to see my friend-!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” You throw your hands out in a _hold up_ motion. Your mind frantically replays what the fuck just happened. “You guys are saying that all of you are _rebels?”_

“Don’t say it out loud!” Tirona stage-whispers, ears flattening against her head. 

Daraya sighs and comes up to pat your shoulder. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

She and Tyzias look at each other, seemingly come to a silent agreement, and then look back to you. 

“You might wanna sit down for this,” says Tyzias. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have as follows:
> 
> Club Presidents: Tyzias and Daraya
> 
> Club Know-it-all: Tagora
> 
> Club Muscle: Stelsa
> 
> Club Initiates: Wanshi, Karako, and the Guardian
> 
> Club Bastard: Lanque
> 
> Does not want to be in the Club but comes because she has nothing better to do: Tirona


	6. Of Roasts and Reunions, Unplanned

Your name is TYZIAS ENTYKK and you have had a  _ long _ fucking six perigees. 

It’s not like it was all terrible, because it wasn’t; a lot of it was actually super thrilling and dangerous enough for your matesprit to ask you, on several occasions, if you’re suicidal. You’re not, thankfully. However, your life has been, for the lack of a better term, apeshit crazy. 

You are currently sitting in a loose circle with your coworkers and the jades, the alien sandwiched protectively between Stelsa and Tagora. Daraya had told you that they had two broken ribs and were severely underweight, but you’re still stunned by how frail they look. Had they been like that before they went missing? They’re strangely tangible now, like you’re truly seeing them for the first time. It haunts you. 

“What’s the last thing you remember before you were kidnapped?” you ask. 

The alien and Lanque exchange glances. 

“I was coming back from a party Lanque invited me to,” they begin. “I was just walking down the street and… boom, next thing I know I’m up in Scratch’s mansion-dimension-hell.”

That’s what the jadeblood told you six perigees ago, but you just wanted to make sure everybody’s timelines were in order. “Right. After you disappeared, we all did a massive search party, and I’m assuming your other friends did the same. That went on for like, what, two and a half perigees? After that, I… well, we came to the conclusion that you got culled.”

They nod. 

Your throat feels tight, but you continue. “Of course, we were all devastated. Nobody wanted to believe you were really gone, but… there wasn’t a trace of you left. So we decided to do the next right thing.”

“Oh boy,” Tirona mutters. 

You ignore her. “Daraya and I kept in touch after you introduced us that one time. We kept coming back to what you would always tell us about making the world a better place, even if we were just talking about random shit. So eventually I was like… hey, fuck it. Let’s start a rebellion. Tegiri thinks we’re all gonna die and wants nothing to do with it, but that’s his problem. What have we got to lose?”

“Your lives,” they point out helpfully. 

“True. But yeah, that’s how this whole thing got started. It took a bit of convincing, but we finally got some other people to join.”

“More like dragged us kicking and screaming into it,” Tagora mutters under his breath. 

“So far we blew up a hangar full of rockets, hacked the government a few times to delete cull-on-sight lists, beat up a purpleblood, vandalised some stuff with Trizza’s face on it, uh… what else did we do, guys?”

“We organized a rescue for Outglut after a drone raid basically burned the place to the ground,” Stelsa added. Yeah, that had been one hell of a wipe. You guys had helped out a lot of survivors, but sometimes even sopor couldn’t keep away daymares of burning flesh and lifeless eyes. Saving everybody wasn’t an option, but you tried your best. That’s what was important. 

“I saved a grub who was gonna be culled because he wasn’t as big as the others,” Wanshi mumbles shyly, kicking her feet against the log she was sitting on. 

“Honk!” Karako adds. 

“And Karako helped!”

The alien’s eyes twinkle with utter delight. “That’s  _ amazing,  _ Wanshi. And holy moly, dude, who blew up the hangar?”

“I think his name is Azdaja? He and his partner Konyyl absolutely  _ destroyed _ the place,” Tagora explains shrewdly, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

“Azdaja and Konyyl? They’re in this too?” they exclaim, getting even more excited. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to see them again. But who the frick hacked the government? That sounds pretty damn dangerous.”

Tirona clears her throat. “A mutual friend of ours is responsible for that. You knew Mallek Adalov, right?”

The goofy smile on their face falls away. “Mallek? Of course I know Mallek! How is he?”

“Hanging in there. He does his own thing, really,” Tirona says with a shrug. 

“When’s the last time you saw him? Does he know I’m back?” they demand. 

Lanque smirks. “Somebody’s eager, huh?”

Your friend splutters and shoots him a look like,  _ I’ll kill you later, bitch. _

“Well, I saw him a couple wipes ago, and… no. He doesn’t know anything. Should I call him?” Tirona asks helpfully, understanding dawning on her grub-round face as she and Lanque lock eyes. He nods eagerly, and the alien shrieks in protest and then clutches their side.

Tagora catches them as they faint, and together he and Stelsa carefully lay them out on the ground. Daraya’s eyes flicker between the alien and Lanque and Tirona, who are animatedly discussing whether or not they should call Mallek, like she doesn’t know whether or not to yell at them for making her beloved friend pass out from pain or join in on the fun. 

You roll your eyes. Great, even  _ more  _ drama. “Jegus, just call Adalov and tell him his bag-of-bones flushcrush is half dead on the forest floor.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a  _ business _ meeting?” Tagora snipes. 

“Business can wait. I want to see where this goes,” Stelsa giggles. “Besides, they’re his friend, too. He deserves to see them again!”

In the dirt and dead leaves, the alien groans. “What…?”

“We’ll take care of everything, dear, just take deep breaths,” your matesprit promises sweetly. She pats the alien’s forehead and scooches over so Daraya can sit down with her and Tagora. Your bloodpusher warms at the sight. 

Tirona’s palmhusk is cheerfully trilling, going through one, two, three cycles of that damn noise. You need to get that kid to change her ringtone, seriously. 

Just when you think Adalov’s not going to answer, there’s a sharp click at the other end.  _ “Yeah?” _

“Mallek, hi!” Tirona sings. “What are you up to?”

_ “Re-wiring my PC so it stops overheating every time I try and play Mineclaw. Look, if you’re gonna ask me to hack anything again, it’s a hard no. I already risked my ass once so you guys could dick around in a major government server--” _

“No, we don’t need you for that. Just get your blue butt down to the base of the jades’ mountain. There’s somebody I think you’d like to see,” she insists. 

_ “I’m busy. Tell Tyzias to suck a fat one.” _

“Okay, but seriously! Mallek, you need to come here, it’s important.”

_ “I already told you, I’m done doing stupid shit.” _

“We both know that’s a lie, but okay.  _ Please, _ dude, you won’t regret it--” Tirona pleads, but gets cut off by Lanque swiping the palmhusk from her hands, growling in exasperation. 

“Adalov. It’s me, Lanque. Come here  _ now. _ They’re back, they’re a little injured, but they’re alive and that’s what’s important. Don’t you want to see them?” 

Dead silence. 

Then, a low beeping as Mallek hangs up. 

Lanque’s fangs glint as he grins in satisfaction. “He’s on his way.”

“You sound like you know him,” you state. 

He shrugs. “Old hookup.”

“Ah.” That makes sense. 

“Gimme my palmhusk back,” Tirona demands, grabbing for the device. Lanque obliges before bringing out his own and fiddling around with it. On the adjacent log, Wanshi and Karako start talking about some story they’re coming up with together. 

Another groan reaches your ears, and you look down to see the alien pushing themselves up on their elbows. “Aw, crap. Did I pass out?”

“Yeah, you did. Also, Tirona and Lanque called your cerulean boyfriend. He’ll be here in a bit” Daraya explains dryly. 

“You… oh,  _ geez. _ He’s not my boyfriend!” 

“I can help with that. Consider it your welcome-back present,” Lanque offers, smugness radiating off every pore. 

“I thought you were on my side!” 

“Darling, I’m on no side but my own.”

“I despise you.”

“Oh?” You almost burst out laughing when you see the bit of interest that sparks in his eyes. Good  _ fuck, _ this alien had all of Thrashthrust wrapped around their little finger. 

Their face burns bright red. “Not like  _ that, _ you horny Onceler headass--”

Tagora tries and fails to cover both Wanshi’s, Tirona’s, and Karako’s ears at the same time. “Stop  _ saying _ those things in front of the  _ kids!” _

“Gor-Gor, until somebody helps peel my injured self out of the literal dirt I’m not doing anything for anybody, okay?” 

“So much for business,” Daraya huffs. You know her well enough by now to see that she’s amused by all of this. It’s in the slight narrow of her shadowed eyes, the tilt of her head. 

“That’s what I just said-!”

Your fellow rebels’ bickering is abruptly cut off by the sound of a revving hoverboard engine somewhere above you. Karako yelps and slaps his hands over the sides of his head. The alien stops cussing out Lanque and looks up at the sky, pale face shining in the light of the moons. Despite Stelsa’s protests, they push themselves to their feet with a grimace. A fierce determination lights them up from within. 

Could you convince them to use that strength for the rebellion? 

“That was fast!” Wanshi notes cheerfully. 

A lean figure blurs through the canopy and swoops down to land on the path outside of the clearing you guys are in. Any other time you’d start ragging on Adalov about him and his stupid pretentious rich-boy hoverboard, but you keep your mouth shut once you see the desperation in his wide blue eyes, and also because the little insect instinct that’s survived billions of years of evolution cringes away from the color. Only adult trolls have color in their eyes, and adults are bad news. 

It’s a lot less dramatic than you thought it was going to be. Mallek steps off his hoverboard and kicks it up into his waiting left hand, opens his mouth to say something, and then his eyes fall on the alien. 

Something incredibly sweet and vulnerable softens his face behind the obvious shock that makes him stiffen up like a corpse. He hardly looks like the tired, emotionless punk you had the misfortune of meeting once or twice since your mutual friend disappeared. 

Mallek says their name, a perfect mixture of a question and an exclamation. The alien smiles, still holding their side, and limps over to him with their other hand reaching out to him. Something in your guts twist around when he hesitates, before slowly taking their pale, bony hand in his own, like he’s not believing what he’s seeing. You hear him inhale shakily when they finally touch. 

“I was hoping we’d be able to do this a little more gracefully, but my friends are assholes,” the alien jokes feebly. 

The cerulean shakes his head in disbelief. “How… how are you alive? I thought… we all thought--”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

Out of the corner of your eye, Tirona sniffles and wipes her nose with a handkerchief. She looks like a proud lusus. 

“I’ll explain everything, I promise,” the alien vows. “Wanna sit down with us? Tyzias is filling me in on everything I missed.”

Mallek opens his mouth like he’s trying to speak, but then he just nods and follows the alien back to your little friendship circle group. The poor bastard still looked like somebody had slapped the thinkpan cells from his skull. 

He doesn’t get the chance to join you, though. A low hum of another engine reaches your ears, deeper than that of a hoverboard and more guttural. Lanque shoots to his feet, pointed ears sticking straight up. 

“Drones!” Stelsa cries. 

Your digestive tract drops down and out of your ass. No, no,  _ no, _ not  _ now! _ The government was getting an idea as to who you are, and once they see you and a bunch of other trolls meeting up in a fucking forest of all places-!

You’re on your feet and ready to bolt, but before you can go anywhere the alien reaches out and pulls your arm. 

“Everybody hold hands!” they shout. 

Tagora whips around to stare at them. “What?!”

_ “Just do it!” _

They look deadly serious. You squeeze their wrist and wonder what your life has come to. Daraya and Lanque grab Wanshi and Karako, who grabs Tirona, who clings to Tagora, who holds on to Stelsa. Mallek grabs Stelsa, still hand-in-hand with the alien with his hoverboard tucked underneath his arm. 

Three drones whiz by over your heads. Your blood turns to ice inside of you. Weirdly, the only thing you can think of is if you told Bearmom you loved her before you left. 

“Okay, guys, this is gonna be weird. Brace yourselves!” The alien grits their teeth, looking like they were concentrating. Something in their strange hazel eyes flashes bright green. 

One second you’re standing in a clearing in the woods, holding hands with your weird friend and some punk, and the next everything is pitch black. 

Not black like a moonless night, but black like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It was the darkness of space, the endless void every living thing is subconsciously terrified of. You’d written a paper about the fear of the unknown when you were six sweeps old. It lasts for less than one beat of your bloodpusher, but it felt like an eternity in your panicked mind. 

All at once the abyss goes away, and you and your group are in somebody’s messy apartment. 

You and Tagora stare at each other for the time it felt like you were in the void. Tirona is holding his hand in a white-knuckled grip so intense you’re surprised somebody hasn’t broken a bone. 

Wanshi is the first to speak. “Holy  _ shit.” _

“Wanshi,” Lanque hisses. 

Slowly, Daraya lets go of his and Karako’s hands. “... Well. You weren’t lying about the whole space-time thing after all.”

Your alien friend snorts. “Nope.” 

“We just teleported,” you realize. 

“Yep.”

Mallek breaks away and sits down heavily on the loungeplank. It looks like you’re in the living room, except there’s computer parts littered everywhere. 

The alien looks back at him, guilt evident in the way they hold themselves. “Um, sorry. This was the only place I could perfectly visualize for some reason.” 

“... You need to be able to visualize something or somewhere to travel to it?” he asks. 

“Yeah. Space-time travel is weird like that.”

He nods. 

There’s another long break of silence. 

This time, Lanque breaks it. “Adalov, why is there a crusty grubcake stuck to the ceiling of your kitchen?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian has terrible friends lol. Poor Mallek. 
> 
> If you're wondering why the Guardian didn't just teleport down the mountain in the first place, all will be explained in the next chapter. :)


	7. Of Old Friends and Quiet Moments

You are THE GUARDIAN, which is kind of unfortunate because you’re currently face down and up to your chest in a medicalizer, which has clamped down on your torso so hard you think you’re going to throw up. It’s not like you’re not grateful for the opportunity to heal your broken ribs, but feeling the machine forcefully fuse the bone and muscle back together is not a pleasant experience. Even advanced technology has its setbacks, you suppose. 

“If it hurts too much, we can take a break.”

You look up to Mallek, who is sitting beside you like a very anxious guard dog. Somebody put a big plastic bowl underneath you in case you puke, but you guess he wants to be ready to either hold your hair up like a drunk sorority girl at a party or pull you out of the medicalizer. 

You manage a wheezy laugh. “Nah, I don’t feel pain. I’m a robot, remember?”

An unhappy whine rises up from the back of Mallek’s throat, kind of like a stressed cat. “These things can suck even for highbloods. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, dude. I just--” Something clicks back into place in your side, and your vision goes fuzzy for a couple seconds.  _ “Augh.  _ Just need to be uncomfortable for a little while longer. I’m not running around Thrashthrust with broken ribs any longer than, than I have to,  _ oh shit.” _

Your stomach rolls like a fighter jet and you let loose into the strategically placed bowl beneath you. Hey look, there’s the grubflakes you ate for breakfast. 

Mallek grimaces, and you feel a cool hand rubbing circles into your upper back. You turn your attention towards breathing in and out, in and out, just focusing on the physical contact. It’s only a little after midnight but you’re already exhausted. The painkillers Lynera gave you early in the evening have long since worn off. 

“What happened to you?” you hear him whisper. 

You force your eyes back open. “Daraya already told you? I got thrown into a tree by a goddamn cholerbear. Nasty sonuva bitch.”

“No, I know  _ that!  _ Why did you disappear for like, half a sweep?” he demanded. 

His voice cracks about halfway through, and guilt hits you like a sucker punch. You just want to see him smile again. Granted, you’re looking down at the bowl-o’-puke instead of your friend, but you don’t really have the strength to do anything else. 

“Long story short, I got kidnapped. Made some new friends to cope. Escaped, made sure my new friends were okay, and then I came back here. I’ll tell you the full version when I’m not on the verge of passing out,” you explain. 

_ “Kidnapped?” _ Mallek explodes. “The hell you mean, kidnapped?!”

You wince at the noise and reach out to pat his knee.  _ “Sshhhhhhhh. _ Shhhh. Calm down. It’s fine now. Be calm.”

His face lights up blue. It’s only then you remember telling that shushing a troll is considered lowkey sexy or something. Whoops. 

“I would never leave you on purpose, Mallek,” you say, quickly pulling away before it can get weird. “Or… or anybody. Okay?”

“... Okay,” he mumbles. 

You smile encouragingly at him. He grabs your hand and squeezes it. It would have been a really sweet moment, except you’re sweaty and shaky and everything stinks like vomit. You can’t imagine how much it must reek to Mallek and his better sense of smell. 

The both of you stay like that for a few more minutes, and then the medicalizer goes off with a sharp buzz and releases your torso from its clamps. You immediately inhale as much as you possibly can, groaning with relief when there was no more stabbing pain. There’s still a bit of soreness; a medicalizer can only do so much for bruising, but by all the horrorterrors have you missed breathing like a regular person. 

“How’s it feel?” Mallek asks. You can feel the anxiety coming off him in waves. 

“So much better.” You’d fall asleep right there and then if he gave you the chance, but you feel him gently grab your hands and pull you out of the medicalizer. A pair of strong arms lift you up, carry you a short distance away, and then set you back down on a sofa.

You accidentally let out a squeak when you feel a chilly finger poke your stitches. 

“Sorry.”

“Nah, you’re good. You’re just cold.”

Mallek huffs and touches the scarred-over gash again. “The medicalizer took care of this big wound right here, but the stitches need to come out. I don’t know how, though.”

_ The fun never ends. _ “Lanque did ‘em.”

“I’ll go get him. Be right back,” he promises. You hear him jump to his feet and leave the room, the door creaking slightly on his way out. Downstairs, you can hear your friends discussing something, most likely Tyzias and Daraya cooking up a crazy new plan for the rebellion. 

You can’t wait to join them and help save the planet. Vriska’s demand that you return in ten nights is a constant reminder of what you came here to do, but it also makes you nervous about the inevitable teleporting you’ll need to do. What if you messed up and ended up somewhere you shouldn’t? Causing a paradox wouldn’t just screw up your mission, it could ruin the  _ fabric of reality.  _ That fear kept you from so much as doing a measly little jump down the mountainside when you left the caverns. 

Having powers was handy, sure, but sometimes it made everything, like, a thousand times more stressful than it actually had to be. 

The thumping of footsteps up the stairs gives you the distraction you need to calm down. You crack open an eye in time to see Mallek and Lanque striding in. 

“Hey,” you croak.

“Damn, Adalov, did you have it up in the highest setting?” Lanque mutters, turning from you to Mallek with his arms crossed. He doesn’t look very happy with what he sees. 

“Medicalizers are made for trolls, not aliens,” Mallek shoots back. “You know they hurt.”

“That thing was old when you let me use it.”

“I’m sorry, did you know any other highbloods with top-notch medicalizers that could do that surgery you wanted? I don’t think so, fucker.”

“Boys, can we save the pitch stuff for later? I want these stitches out so I don’t have to keep laying around like a dead body,” you growl. 

Mallek and Lanque glance back at you, both looking a little sheepish, before Mallek slinks away to sit down at your feet while muttering something about never being pitch for pretentious assholes who can’t even wear their jackets right. Lanque messes around with a few first aid kits on the shelf beside the medicalizer before finding what he’s looking for-- a small scalpel and a pair of tweezers. 

“Alright, you know the drill. Off with the sports bra,” he orders. 

You groan but obey, pausing with your hand through one of the straps when you notice another pair of wide eyes on you. “Mallek. Turn  _ around, _ my guy.”

A very interesting squeaky noise escapes Mallek’s chest before he turns around and all but slithers over the armrest he was leaning on. You hear him hit the floor with a  _ thump.  _ Lanque rolls his eyes. 

“You two know each other?” you ask as you flip over to lay on your stomach. 

“We’ve met a few times, yes,” Lanque confirms, kneeling down to start picking at the stitches with the scalpel. The way he says it makes you suspect there was a lot more to the story than he was letting on. “Have you already told Mallek everything?”

That was Lanque’s way of saying “Let’s change the subject”, so you let it go. “Not… everything. Are you listening, Mallek?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, because I only want to explain this once. Basically, the multiverse is a whole lot more complicated than anybody knows, and there are a lot of… powerful beings out there that like to meddle. Like, with timelines, and universes, and that kind of stuff. Are you following me?”

“I… okay?”

“So basically, this fucker called Doc Scratch is one of these god things, and he was using me to control his timeline… area… whatever. That’s why I was running around Alternia before I left, because I guess I had to help bring certain people together for the timeline to work? I don’t know. Anyways, he kidnaps me when he’s done making me do his business and makes me read this fucked up comic in his own fucked up dimension, which is also on one of your moons. Long story short, the comic’s about some other friends I made and the shit they get into in another timeline. Eventually I manage to escape from Doc Scratch with only moderate trauma. Yay, me. How are we doing so far?”

You can’t see him, which is probably a good thing. “You… the multiverse and the… okay, sure. Why not.”

“I end up on Alternia again, but in the future, and then Earth, which is my home planet. Well, not that exact version of Earth, but whatever. I end up befriending all these kids and try to help them lead better lives than they would originally in this other timeline where they all play a game that destroys the universe. I should also mention that Doc Scratch somehow wiped my memories before I escaped, so until I meet this cool chick called Aradia I… had completely forgotten about you guys.” You swallow back the lump in your throat and try to focus on Lanque pulling out your stitches. It stings. 

“The last kid I made friends with was this boy called Dirk. Good kid. So we’re hanging out, and this other version of Dirk rocks up from another universe, and this bastard is a kind of god called an… Ultimate Self, I think. He tries to stop me from rewriting the timeline and then tries to kill me or whatever. I get away from him and manage to…” Crap, how do you explain this part without telling your friends you created an entire universe? “I get him to go home and leave me and the kids alone. He can’t hurt us if he’s in his own universe. After all of that I wanted to come back to see you guys again. So I did.”

Like before, you don’t mention the Director, or the little showdown between you, her, and Ultimate Dirk in Doc Scratch’s mansion. You definitely don’t tell them you’re here to help them win the rebellion. You remind yourself you’re not lying to them, you’re just… not telling them everything. To protect them. 

Yeah. 

“What worries me is this Scratch character,” Lanque mutters. “You said that Ultimate Self god went back to his own universe, but if Scratch still has influence over our reality…”

“I… have no idea about Scratch,” you say truthfully. 

“What is he, exactly?”

You release a long sigh. “Every planet with intelligent life has a thing called a First Guardian to guide it and its people to their destinies. Timelines can have Guardians too, I think? I know that sometimes entire universes have Guardians. They keep time and space in order, basically.”

“... If this universe has a First Guardian, why can’t it go beat Scratch’s ass?” Mallek jokes. 

It’s a good question, and you know he’s just trying to lighten the mood, but it still fills you with misery, anger, and a fear so powerful you almost start shaking. If…  _ when _ you meet Scratch again, what will you do? Would you be able to fight him? Protect your friends from him? 

If your friends knew who you really are, would they still care about you? 

“That’s something I would love to see, believe me,” you manage to say. 

“I’m so sorry that all of that happened to you. It’s so fucked up,” Mallek says hoarsely. “I was so pissed that you were gone. I just spent six perigees of my life thinking one of the best friends I ever had was dead and I didn’t even stop to consider that they might be having it even  _ worse.” _

“It’s not your fault. Grief makes people do and feel weird shit,” you assure him. You’re trying not to cry yourself, because you’re half-naked with a super hot guy pulling out your stitches and another hot guy hiding behind the sofa. Your life is a lot of things but  _ boring _ is not one of them.

Your pain tolerance must be through the roof by now, because you don’t even feel it when Lanque pulls out the last couple threads. “All done.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Thanks, Lanque.”

He pats your back. “Come join us downstairs when you’re ready. Tyzias has something I think you’d be interested in.”

Your tiredness instantly fades away. “Oh?”

“You can’t be serious, Bombyx. They’re still recovering,” Mallek protests. 

“Then get off your privileged highblood ass and come with us,” Lanque calls over his shoulder as he saunters out the door. 

Mallek yelps and dives back behind the sofa when you hop up to get dressed. Your shirt was slung over the desk chair, which you gladly yank back on over your bra as you start to shiver. Mallek’s place was always pretty chilly since he ran cold, so you’d always have to bundle up a bit when you came over to hang. 

“Alright, I’m decent. My pasty white ass won’t blind you anymore,” you tell him. 

“You’re more of a really pale… pinkish tawny?” he notes, tossing you your hoodie. 

You decide you’d explain the different ethnic and racial categories humans have to him later. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for letting me use the medicalizer.”

“Duh. I don’t let my friends run around with broken ribs,” Mallek snorts. “Yours sure break a lot, though. Maybe I should just stick you back in there from time to time, just in case.”

You pretend to chuck the puke bowl at him and cackle when he instinctively dodges. Once upon a time, you might have told him that human vomit is acidic. Granted, it definitely is; you can feel your throat and tongue burning like a bitch, but you never specified that it wasn’t deadly or anything. 

“Just put it in the load gaper!” he begs, and you laugh as you follow him down to the bathroom. You forgot how much fun it was to fuck around with him. Maybe you’d introduce him to Kuprum and Folykl, you just  _ know _ that the three of them in one room would be the best thing that ever happened. That, or they’d all kill each other. Those kinds of things could be a little difficult to predict with trolls. 

The puke bowl gets cleaned with water, soap, and a lot of vigorous scrubbing. Your hands get the same treatment. Once you gulp down some water and splash your face in the sink, you turn, only to realize Mallek is staring at you again. His eyes are much more blue than when you last saw him. He’s an inch or two taller as well. 

“... Yeah?” you ask. Did you have vomit on your face? Fuck. 

All at once, Mallek wraps you up in a hug that leaves you breathless. You hug him back instinctively, and then really go all in when you feel him shaking ever so slightly against you. He smells like chips and something vaguely smoky. 

Neither of you say anything for a while. There’s something incredibly fragile in the air, and it warms you from the inside out and fills you with worry. 

“I missed you,” he mumbles into your hair. 

“I missed you too. So much.” 

“... You don’t have to join in on whatever crazy shit they’re cooking up down there.” He chuckles nervously. “Really. You can just… I dunno. Stay with me, if you want?”

You bump your head against his chest and gently squeeze his arms. “Mallek. The world is going to change, and I want to be a part of it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t want you to  _ die.” _

You reach up to gently cup his cheek. “I’ve died before. It’s not so bad, really.”

Mallek leans into the contact, looking at everything but at you. You let yourself be held by him for a little while longer before pulling away. He doesn’t say anything else, but he does follow you down the stairs to the rest of the group. 

You grin at Tyzias when she looks up at you, hopeful. “So whose lives are we gonna ruin tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not that Mallek doesn't want to join the rebellion, especially after the Guardian changed his life, it's just that he's... really scared, tbh. Life's tough when you're a troll with an actual preservation instinct. 
> 
> Next chapter will have more plot, promise!


	8. Of Errands and Ambushes

As it turned out, you would not be dashing off on a dangerous quest as the valiant hero determined to save Alternia. Not yet, anyways. 

However, you _would_ be helping to prepare for Tyzias’s mission that is planned for tomorrow, which has your blood pumping as the teal whips out a map of Thrashthrust, with one smaller area circled in red marker, and slaps it down in the middle of the carpet you’re all gathered around. 

“This is Her Imperial Condescension’s Drone Factory of the General Thrashthrust Area,” Tyzias begins. “In about thirty hours, all drones in the city will report back to the factory in four waves for about one hour each to upload new information to the government’s databases. Information like this includes individuals who are at risk of being culled, cellular data that’s been used to track people as they go about their night, and most importantly, if there’s any signs of rebellion. The drones will also be undergoing their regular maintenance checks.”

Daraya reaches over and taps a claw to the area circled in red. “While there are a few trolls there to make sure everything’s running smoothly, the uploading of data and maintenance checks are done by computers. What we want is to get into those computers and wipe out the data. Bonus points if we can wreck the computers, too.”

“That kind of technology won’t just be out in the open for anybody to get into, much less the information needed to actually access the good stuff,” Mallek says, tapping the pad of his pointer finger to his other fist. He’s tense, and for a good reason. 

“We won’t be doing any hacking this time. Maybe if we had more time in between waves, but…” Stelsa shakes her head. “No, we’re going to have to take a more… _crude_ approach.”

Tagora smiles and drums his claws against his knees. “The factory’s heavily protected against things like solar flares, but only from the outside. If something like, say, a massive electromagnetic pulse were to go off inside…”

Mallek raises a brow. “You have electro-bombs?”

“For legal reasons, no. For other reasons… just don’t ask me anything about any bombs, please.”

You grin at Tagora. “Hell _yes,_ Gor-Gor.”

“Hell _no,_ Gor-Gor,” Tirona begs, tugging on his sleeve. 

“Try and stop me, you little gremlin.”

Tirona groans dramatically and flops back on the loungeplank with her hands over her face. 

You’re absolutely amazed at how much your friends have changed since you disappeared. Who could have thought that _Tagora Gorjek,_ of all people, would join up with a whole-ass rebellion? Or Stelsa, for that matter? Even Tirona seems resigned to the fact that she’s going to end up involved whether she likes it or not. 

“So how are we getting the bombs in there?” Wanshi chirps. 

“Orginally, I had a plan that consisted of people sneaking in and out of the buildings between waves. Different drones go to different buildings for their business. Now, we have a much easier and quicker way of doing the whole thing.” Tyzias nods to you.

“We understand if you still need more time to recover, though,” Daraya adds quickly. 

You meet her gaze without hesitation. “I’m ready.”

_This is why I’m here, kiddo. For your future, for all of our futures, for this planet. I just wish I could tell you that._

“... Wait. Before we go any further, there’s something you said earlier that everybody seems to be overlooking. Something very important.”

You turn to Lanque and are surprised by how intensely he’s looking at you. Dark green eyes glint sharply through his bangs. 

“What’s up?” you offer. 

“When you explained to us what happened to you, you said that you had come back to Alternia, but… in the _future._ If you went to the future, then you _must_ know how this all turns out,” Lanque states matter-of-factly. 

Your heart sinks. 

“Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about that,” Tyzias growls before you can try to defend yourself. “But the thing is, _we can’t know._ ”

Watching the realization hit your friends is like watching a car accident. You wince as Tagora, Tirona, and Stelsa glare at you furiously. Wanshi and Karako look confused, and then nervous. 

“And why not?” Stelsa demands.

Thankfully, Daraya chucks her pen at Lanque with a hiss. _“Because,_ you morons! If we know the wrong things, we could screw up everything! If they tell us we win, we might slack off at the wrong times and get ourselves killed. If we lose, then what’s stopping you from just giving up?”

“I don’t like not knowing things,” Tagora says coldly. 

“Tough!” 

Lanque grimaces. “This is definitely not where I meant to go with this. I was just hoping for a few words of reassurance from our dear friend that they actually have a plan to help us succeed.”

“And I do!” you promise desperately, shooting to your feet. “Look, I know it’s crazy of me to ask you guys to trust me with something like this, especially since I’ve been gone so long. But in…” You pause to do some quick math. “In seven nights I’m supposed to report back to my friends in the future. If we all work together, then we will be able to do this with the _least_ amount of casualties, in the least amount of time.”

“Can we trust these friends of yours?” Tyzias asks. 

“Yes. I wish I could tell you more, but…” you trail off, at a loss for words. 

“This is barnacles,” Tirona whispers to Wanshi. 

“The thing is, y’all don’t have a choice. They can time-travel. They can provide your rebellion with critical information about what to do next. Like it or not, they are your key to victory,” Mallek snaps, pointing to you with one sharp claw. “If you guys wanna keep whining about them trying to protect the stability of the timeline or whatever then that’s your fuckin’ problem. I trust them to do the right thing no matter what, and so should you.”

You want to hug him again. “Thank you, Mallek.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Adalov’s right. With all the shit they’ve been through, I think they’re more than capable of doing this for us,” Lanque agrees. 

There’s a moment of tense silence. You’re nauseous again for an entirely different reason. 

“... Fine. I mean… yes. You’re right,” Tagora finally admits, trying to not quail under the vicious stares of Daraya and Tyzias. He glances over at you a little remorsefully, and then sits back down besides Stelsa without another word. Stelsa nods, surprisingly quiet for once. Tirona gives you the peace sign and also keeps her mouth shut. 

“I won’t let you guys down. That, I promise you,” you tell them. 

“Then let’s _go_ already,” Lanque sighs. 

“Oh, yeah… uh, where are they?”

“I had them commissioned from a… special artist,” Tagora admits. “An indigo acquaintance of my kismesis.” 

“Oh, worm? You and Galekh are official?” you gasp. 

“Yes, yes we are. Now don’t go spreading my business around to just anybody! _Anyways,_ his name is Bovois. After I pay him he will most likely try to kill me.”

“I… yeah, I don’t know why that took me off guard. Continue.”

Tagora smiles thinly. “The plan is simple. Bovois and I complete the transaction, I thank him for his time and walk away. He is a wealthy man and will therefore have somebody do the dirty work once I leave his property. I will be… _relying_ on a few choice trolls to help me make sure they don’t succeed.”

“Or I could just teleport you out of there,” you protest. 

“And have him call the drones on us once he sees you? I think not.”

You know he’s right, and it pisses you off. “Fine. I’m still coming, though. Just in case.”

“If you insist,” he says, but you can tell he’s happy you want to go with him. “Lanque and Stelsa will be the backup.”

“I’m taking Wanshi and Karako back to the caverns for afternoon classes. Call me with the results,” Daraya orders as she shoos the kids back towards the elevator.

“I’m taking back our brat, too.” Tyzias opts to just sling a squealing Tirona over her shoulder as she marches past Daraya. 

“But I’m strong! I can beat up anybody!” Wanshi argues. 

_“Honk!”_ Karako makes his displeasure known with a few low notes deep in his throat, which sounds like somebody playing a rusty trumpet. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Come on, Bronya’s already gonna kill me for bringing you two outside, anyways.”

“I know how to _walk,_ Tyzias!” Tirona shrieks. 

“Stop screaming in my ear, you short f--”

The chaos is shut off when the elevator doors slide shut. You decide right then and there that you’re never going to have kids of your own. 

“Tegiri’s missing out on all the fun,” you tell Tagora. 

“Tegiri can shove his sword where the moons don’t shine.” He looks over at Lanque and Stelsa. “I hope you two have been brushing up on your fighting skills, because it’s about to get _messy.”_

You feel something cool brush against your wrist, and you take Mallek’s hand in your own. He’s looking down at you with big blue eyes that say _stay._

It’s too much, and you look down at the sign on his hoodie. “I’ll come back soon.”

“... Promise?”

“Always.”

:::

The four of you take the omniscuttlecar-- no, the omniscuttle… the bus. You take the fucking bus to the highblood part of Thrashthrust. 

Somehow you guys find an empty car so that nobody sees your alien ass, but even then you stick close to your friends. You take the chance to catch up with Stelsa, who chats animatedly about a case she just won, which is super cool except you know nothing about Alternian law, so you just smile and nod as she goes on about some legislation invented to protect lowbloods except it really doesn’t. Tagora and Lanque launch into a passionate conversation about different high-brand clothes, which delights you until they turn and start making fun of you and Stelsa. 

“Okay, okay! But at least _my_ hair isn’t greasy!” Stelsa yells at Tagora. 

“How _dare_ you. I’ll have you know all of my hair products are the highest quality a teal can afford in this economy--”

“Economy? Bitch, that’s just caste oppression,” you shoot back. 

He pauses for a second. “Shit. Maybe you’re right. It’s a shame about your pores, though.”

“Gor-Gor, I’m homeless, _why_ would my pores be a priority.”

“Your hair is a little greasy,” Lanque snickers. 

“It is _not!_ That’s just hair gel--” 

“At least Stelsa and I have asses,” you cut in. 

Both Lanque and Tagora turn to you, looking so damn offended Stelsa starts cackling and almost falls out of her seat. 

“That was _low,”_ Tagora hisses. 

“Yeah, I get low every time I do squats. That’s why I have an ass.”

The boys definitely would have taken turns destroying your life after that, but you’re literally saved by the bell when the speakers above you chime, letting you know you guys reached your destination. You feel the bus slow and your heartbeat speed up. 

All at once, the fun drains out of the air like water down the drain. You all look at each other before Tagora gets up, pulls the door open, and marches down the collapsable stairs with his head held high. You’re not fooled, though. Tagora Gorjek is afraid, as he rightfully should be, and he’d rather die than admit it. 

You fall in close behind him, with Stelsa and Lanque fanning out on either side. It’s easy to see why they were chosen for this mission-- both of them are big and strong. 

“Never took you for the fighting type,” you tell Lanque as you walk down a road that leads to a fancy neighborhood. Each property is so large each hive is no bigger than a pencil eraser on the horizon. The place _reeks_ of privilege. 

He winks. “It’s called being well-rounded, darling.”

“Where’d you learn?”

“Let’s just say growing up in the caverns isn’t kind to those who… don’t become what people expect you to become.”

You’re not sure what to make of that, but he doesn’t say anything else on the matter, and you don’t push him. Right now, there’s bigger fish to fry. 

Tagora leads you around a curve in the road and stops before the first path on Shatterbone Avenue. Charming. It leads up to an absolutely _massive_ hive that makes Vriska’s castle look like a treehouse. Elegantly pointed spires reach up into the cloudy sky like they’re trying to spear the stars themselves, and buttresses line all the outside walls that you can see. The yard’s just as magnificent, with a lavish garden and an assortment of trees and shrubbery lining the property. 

It’s beautiful, but just looking at it makes you feel lonely. How could one person possibly live alone like this, much less grow up in it? 

“... Huh,” you say instead of voicing your thoughts. 

“Indeed.” Tagora swallows and takes a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.”

“We’ll be ready,” you promise him. 

He nods stiffly before striding up the path. You, Stelsa, and Lanque slip into the cover of some dense shrub-thing. You’re glad this neighborhood is so spaced out, because if somebody saw some weird pale creature, a teal, and a jade all trying to hide in a bush the drones would be on you like Zebruh trying to get a date. 

Through the brush, you see Tagora knock on the door three times and wait. It’s a solid twenty seconds before anybody answers, which you think is a little rude, but whatever. 

You become a little less worried about social etiquette when Galekh’s indigo friend steps out to greet Tagora. The dude is fucking _massive,_ with horns that twist around to the front like a bull’s, and with muscles like one, too. Tagora’s always been a little small, but standing in front of this absolute unit he didn’t look to be much more than a wiggler. 

“Holy _fuck,”_ you mumble. “Who let that thing out of the caverns?”

“Wasn’t me,” Lanque whispers back. 

“Ssh!” Stelsa hisses. 

The two start talking after Tagora bows to him. Bovois’s body language looks friendly enough, but from this distance it’s hard to tell. That, and troll body language is way different than human body language. 

“Bovois is about to go get the bombs,” Lanque murmurs in your ear. 

You shiver a little and tell yourself it’s because your friend is about to be attacked. “You can hear them from here?”

“Can’t you?”

“No.”

Stelsa flicks the both of you upside the head, and you wince. That was gonna bruise. 

Sure enough, Bovois disappears back inside the hive for a moment before bringing out an innocent-looking black bag. Tagora opens it and looks inside. Apparently what he wants is in there, because he steps back to clasp Bovois’s huge hand. 

“Are they shaking on it or is Gorjek getting his arm ripped off?” Lanque mutters. 

“Pfft.”

Without fanfare, it’s over. Tagora bows again and strides off down the path, slinging the backpack over his shoulders. The door closes behind him and takes Bovois with it. 

You hold your breath as Tagora nears the end of the walkway, turns, and looks around. 

Nobody else is there. Nothing happens. 

Stelsa and Lanque look at each other, then at you, and then you all look out at Tagora before carefully emerging back on to the road. Something stabs you in the thigh, and you grunt as you yank out the offending thorn to rub at the irritated area. Lanque brushes off a dead leaf on his sleeve with a look of disgust. 

Without a word, the four of you start power walking back down to the neighborhood entrance. Nobody’s running, except you because you have short-ass legs. Just a small group of friends who got turned around and ended up in a highblood area. _Nothing to see here, folks._

The walk to the entrance is the shortest and longest of your life. Somehow, all of you make it there, and no other troll in sight. The bus stop is just down the street, and a scuttlebuggy drives by with the bass turned all the way up. 

“... Huh,” you say again. 

“You’re gonna give me white hair, Gor-Gor,” Stelsa scolds. 

Tagora makes a face. “Well--”

Annoyingly enough, it’s Lanque’s crazy good ears that save your asses when a dark blur comes flying around the corner with knives drawn. Tagora gets knocked out of the way just in time for the jade to take the full impact of the attack. 

Stelsa screeches with fury as Lanque and the attacker go horns-over-heels into a tree and flings herself into the fray. You stare in horror as Lanque snarls and bites the shit out of his assailant’s forearm, only to get a knife to the shoulder. Stelsa grabs the attacker and flings them back into the tree with a solid _thud._ The new troll has to be tough as shit, because they just dodge out of the way when Stelsa goes in for the kill. They’re smaller but insanely fast, and before you can so much as blink they’re lunging for Tagora. 

A scream builds in your throat, and then--

Lanque hooks his claws into their side, takes them to the ground just as you skid to a stop in front of Tagora. The two flip around in the turf, clawing at each other and screaming like mountain lions. There’s green and teal blood everywhere. It’s on fangs and hands and clothes and all over the blue-gray grass. Stelsa jumps back in, is slashed across the face, and almost gets stabbed, leaning back just in time to get cut across the nose. 

Seeing trolls fight is terrifying to watch, but when they _really_ get into it, it’s like watching two wild animals try and kill each other.

The attacker finally kicks Lanque off them and whips around to slam their knee into Stelsa’s stomach. The teal goes down with a ragged wheeze, gray face going white. Lanque doesn’t even get the chance to get back up again before there’s a knife going for his gut. 

You don’t even think about it, you just act. With a speed you didn’t think a human could have, you charge and ram into the assassin’s side as hard as you possibly can. 

The ground and the sky switch places several times before you’re flat on your back. A million miles away, Tagora is screaming something. A shiny point of a silver blade comes down towards your chest. 

You brace for impact. 

It never comes. 

Two huge yellow eyes are staring down at you, pupils blown out in shock. The rest of their face is hidden by their hood and a mask, but even before it’s ripped off by a shaking hand you know who this troll is. You’re not winded but there’s no air in your lungs. 

_“Polypa?!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao imagine attacking somebody and getting into a huge fight and the whole time you didn't notice your moirail, who went missing six perigees ago, watching from the sidelines. Couldn't be me. 
> 
> Good job, Polypa.
> 
> Also, over A THOUSAND VIEWS before I even posted the eighth chapter?!?! Holy mother of FUCK, my dudes, you guys are incredible. I can’t even to begin to explain how much happiness it brings me to see how many people like this fic. You all are so amazing, and I would have never thought this little quarantine project would get so much love. 
> 
> On a similar note, how would you guys feel if I made a Tumblr blog for this fic? There’s art I’d like to do, and I’d love to chat with whoever has the time. 
> 
> Peace out u3u


	9. Of Surviving and Thriving

Your name is TAGORA GORJEK, and you just survived your first assassination attempt. 

Not many are as lucky as you to have made it to your eighth sweep around the sun without such an experience (or several), so you do your best to keep that in mind as you stagger back to your feet. The world feels like it’s spinning around you-- are you in shock? Probably. You’ve always been a bit of a weakling when it came to things such as these. There’s grass stains and dirt on your clothes and in your hair, and your side is definitely bruised from where Bombyx kicked it, but you are  _ alive _ and that is what’s important. 

The air is dead silent from when the alien called out a name… Polypa? 

Oh. 

Oh, shit. 

You are going to  _ kill _ Tegiri. 

“For fuck’s sake, woman!” you explode, losing all fear as you storm over to the oliveblood and yank her up by the ponytail. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t take you to court for this, right now-- uh, are you okay?”

Goezee hasn’t even tried to slice off your fingers for touching her. She and the alien are just staring at each other, wide-eyed and speechless. The alien’s gaze briefly flicks over to you before they look back at Polypa, and they wince. 

“Uh… Gor-Gor, do you mind letting go of my moirail?”

… You are going to kill Tegiri, bring him back to life, and then kill him again. 

“Your moi-- of course. Of course you’re dating the assassin.” You step back and massage your temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. “Yes. Of course.”

Goezee comes back to life in the blink of an eye and slaps your hand away. She goes down on her knees next to the alien and flings her arms around them, letting out a string of the most pathetic pale vocalizations you have ever heard, and that includes the porno Tyzias sent you as a prank for your seventh wriggling day.

“What the fuck?” Stelsa demands, before she bends over with a pained cough. 

“Yes, my feelings precisely. Our mutual friend has lovers in high, er, low places, it seems,” you huff, going to help her up before your eyes fall on something a little more distressing. 

Lanque Bombyx is on his stomach in the grass, unmoving and silent. 

_ “Bombyx!” _ Before you even know what you’re doing you’re beside him, shoving him over onto his back with a grunt. Your guts flip over on themselves in fear. “Lanque? No, no, come on, you Troll Gucci-loving jackass, you’re the only one I’ve ever had a good conversation about accessorizing with, I  _ forbid _ you from dying on me now--”

A low groan rises up from the bloody mess, and you’re able to breathe normally again. “Please stop talking, it’s too loud.”

All at once, the alien, Goezee, and Stelsa are joining you and Lanque, with Goezee tight-lipped and the alien growing increasingly scared for their friend. 

“Did you hit any vital organs?” Stelsa demands. 

“No, I was just trying to get him off me, not kill him.” With practiced ease, the oliveblood pulls out a clean rag and a small bottle full of some green liquid. She unscrews the cap and dumps some of the liquid into the stab wound on Lanque’s shoulder. The jadeblood heaves with a pained hiss, growling deep in his chest. 

“Lanque, I’m so sorry,” the alien whimpers. 

“Oh, darling, you’re the one who stopped this bitch from completely eviscerating me,” Lanque breaths, reaching over to gently pat their thigh. 

“This bitch is keeping your injuries from getting infected and jump-starting the healing process,” Polypa grunts. Ignoring another furious spit, she tightly wraps the stab wound with the rag and ties it down. “Make sure to clean out the other cuts when you go home. Avoid moving that shoulder around for a couple wipes.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Lanque rasps. 

Polypa rolls her eyes. “Of course.”   
  


You and the alien help him to his feet, and relief helps you stay grounded when he’s able to walk without too much difficulty. It’s no secret you’ve got a soft spot for jadebloods, and if he had died because of you… well. You don’t want to think about it. 

“What about Bovois?” you ask Polypa as the five of you make your way back up the sidewalk to the omniscuttlebus station. 

“I’ll take care of him,” she promises grimly. 

The bombs in your backpack weigh heavily on your shoulders and mind. If anybody had told you six perigees ago that you would soon be joining a rebellion against the Alternian Empire, you would have simply laughed in their face at the sheer audacity. Then, you would have called the drones on them. That’s what good, law-abiding citizens did, after all, and you are a good, law-abiding citizen. 

But it had started way before that, hadn’t it? Ever since you befriended that alien and saw how  _ good _ a person can be. Ever since something in your twisted bloodpusher came untangled, bit by bit, as the exposure to their warmth and kindness thawed you from the inside out. If it hadn’t been for Xigisi and all the other friends they made, you would have assumed you were losing your mind. 

As of now, you have about twenty-eight hours until the beginning of the next mission. Tyzias has yet to hammer out all of the finer steps, which is slowly driving you insane because you want nothing more than to pester her for details, but you already had the nerve to lash out at the alien earlier over their time travelling shenanigans. Entykk is slow to anger, but even you know better than to test her twice in the same night. 

Being that this is Thrashthrust, you and your group don’t receive so much as a second glance as you board the omniscuttlebus, even with you and the alien supporting a beaten-up jade boy and another teal and an olive giving each other nasty looks behind your back when they think you’re not looking. The ride out of the indigo part of the city is, unsurprisingly, a lot less enthusiastic than the ride in. Even Stelsa doesn’t say much other than a couple of warning hisses at Goezee when the olive accidentally makes eye contact. 

By the time the omniscuttlebus reaches the station nearest to your hive, Lanque is able to walk by himself again, but you still don’t hesitate to quickly usher everybody inside your office-slash-home as quickly as you can. You can’t even bring yourself to care about the dirt left by the front door from peoples’ shoes. 

“I’ll text Daraya and Tyzias,” Stelsa mutters, giving Goezee one last nasty look before sitting down primly on a loungeplank. 

Something tugs at the bottom of your pants, and you glance down to see Ferretdad yanking away, an angry chitter rising up from his throat. 

“I’m fine,” you promise him, crouching down so he doesn’t have to crane his neck as much. “We got the bombs and everything. See?”

You take off the backpack and show him. Ferretdad doesn’t look impressed, and squeaks at you to wait before bouncing off down the hall. 

Any other time, you’d be embarrassed from all the fussing, but after what happened earlier you can’t bring yourself to protest. You busy yourself at your desk by turning on the coffee machine and getting clean mugs from the cupboards. A good cup of coffee would help clear your pan, and then you’d feel fine again. 

A scoff from Lanque has your attention, even though he’s talking to the alien, who Goezee clearly wants to just be alone with. “You should have told me your quads were open, dear. I know many in the cloister who’d be a great match for you.”

The way he glares at Polypa makes it obvious he’s really saying  _ I’d rather see you with anybody else than this filthy creature. _

You privately agree. Why couldn’t the alien have chosen a good, dutiful jade from one of Lanque’s peers? Better yet, one of your own coworkers? 

The alien smiles tiredly and pats Lanque’s arm. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m good. Geez, what’s up with jades and trying to get me to date their coworkers? Bronya asked me the same thing awhile back.”

“Perhaps she’s right about one thing,” Lanque mutters. 

Polypa glares at him, pulling her moirail closer to her. “That’s nice. Shouldn’t you be in the caverns with your sisters?”

“Shouldn’t you be trying to murder some poor bastard?”

“Can we  _ not?” _ the alien demands, shoving the two farther apart. “Don’t make me auspitize for you fuckers, because I will.”

“Tyzias says ‘Good job on not getting killed’,” Stelsa calls over. 

“Tell her I said thanks.” You bring her the mug and set it down on the nutrition plateau. “Any word from Daraya?”

“She better not have told Bronya,” Lanque growls. 

“Why do you guys need electromagnetic explosives?” Polypa asks, crossing her muscular arms. 

“None of your business, stray.”

The alien ribs him. “We’re gonna wreck the drone factory.”

You turn to them with a hiss. “You can’t just go around  _ telling  _ people these sort of things! You’ll get us all killed!”

They roll their eyes. “Gor-Gor, she’s my girlfriend. She’s not gonna snitch.”

“I don’t snitch,” Polypa agrees. 

A clattering from the back rooms announces the presence of Ferretdad, who comes huffing and puffing back into the living room, dragging a medicalizer kit that’s three times his size. He leaves it to bound over to Stelsa and bite her ankles until she relents, before doing the same to Polypa and Lanque. 

“Thank you, sir,” Polypa says graciously, popping the kit open and selecting one (1) bandaid for herself. She slaps it on the massive puncture wounds on her forearm from when Lanque bit her. A bite like that would have given a lesser troll nerve damage, you note. You’d be impressed if it wasn’t because she was trying to kill you. 

“Darling, if you could just put it over the stab wound on my shoulder? I’m afraid I can’t see it very well,” Lanque says, holding another bandage out to the alien while making the most pathetic pair of baby-barkbeast eyes at them. 

“Sure!” The alien takes the bandage and holds the ripped sleeve open while they apply the bandage, tongue sticking out in concentration as they wipe a bit of blood away. 

Lanque makes a big show of looking away, exposing his neck to them in the sluttiest display of pale-flushed behavior you’ve ever seen. He smirks at Polypa, whose pupils dilate in rage, a low rumble rising up from deep in her chest. The alien doesn’t seem to notice-- the frequency must be too low for their sub-par ears to catch. 

By some miracle of the gods, Stelsa has the globes to intervene before the two start trying to kill each other all over again. “So! Polypa, was it? If I were to tell you that our little group here is part of a… rather  _ rebellious _ faction with the intent to overthrow the Heiress and bring equality to all members of Alternian society, how would you feel?”

Polypa’s growling stutters to a halt. “I… I’d tell you that’s absolutely insane, probably borderline suicidal. Where do I sign up?”

“I’ve changed my mind. I like her,” Stelsa says happily. “No need to sign up for anything! Just keep your trap shut to everybody else outside of the group and I won’t feed your guts to the dire-ravens.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“We’re going on a mission tomorrow. Wanna come?” the alien offers. 

“Absolutely.”

You groan. “We don’t even have all of the details yet, because my  _ dearest _ coworker leaves everything to do until the last possible second before rushing off on a potentially deadly expedition--”

“Dude, how hard can it be?” the alien snorts. “I can teleport. Just give me the bombs; I’ll be in and out of there in, like, ten seconds.”

“I’m sorry, you can what?” Polypa demands. 

“Teleport. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you in a bit.”

“Do you know how to set and time them? Do you know where you’re even going?” you ask, raising a brow. 

“Um… no. But that’s what I have you for! Just set them up for me, and I’ll drop ‘em off and skedaddle. And, uh… I’ll bring the map?”

Stelsa and Lanque look at each other like,  _ they’re gonna die.  _

The alien makes a face. “Well, unless anybody has a  _ better _ idea, I’ll be the one doing this. I’ve done a lot stupider for a lot less.”

“I don’t doubt that,” you tell them dryly. “I just don’t like the thought of you going in alone.”

Polypa claps a hand to their shoulder. “Then I’ll come, too. I’m good at finding my way around.”

Your friend’s brow furrow, and for the first time, you see a glint of fear on their face. “You know I can’t ask you to do that.”

“No need to ask. I’m  _ telling _ you I’m coming with you. I already lost you once,” Polypa snaps. “And that will never happen again.”

They groan. “I’m not gonna convince you to stay behind, aren’t I.”

“No. No, you are not.”

_ “Ugh.” _

“Where will our base of operations be?” Stelsa asks. 

“There’s an abandoned building two blocks away,” Lanque offers. “Nothing to fuck up if the bombs go off prematurely. Nobody to see us doing illegal shit.”

“Ooh, good idea! I’ll tell Tyzias and Daraya,” Stelsa says, already tapping away at her palmhusk. 

You’re still not convinced the plan is foolproof. There was too much depending on the alien and Polypa finding the computer rooms undetected, placing the bombs, and leaving before they went off. The thought of drones or security finding and killing your off-world friend is enough to make your palms sweaty with anxiety. 

“The waves begin tomorrow at three,” you force yourself to say. “We’ll meet at two in the abandoned building Lanque says is safe. Bring food and stuff to entertain yourself with. Providing it doesn’t take too long for the alien and Polypa to find the computer rooms, we’ll finish placing the bombs before the end of the fourth wave. We’ll leave, and once we’re a safe distance away we’ll set them off.”

The alien grins. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”

“I’ll run it over with Tyzias when I go over later,” Stelsa assures you. 

“Thanks.” You stare out the window at the lights of the city, where trolls of all castes and shapes and sizes were living out their lives, one possibly deadly night at a time. How many of them, given the chance, would join the rebellion? How many would cull you on the spot for even thinking about such a thing? 

You think about Tirona, and the anger in her eyes when you first denounced the Alternian Empire in front of her. The grief you had tried so hard to suppress over losing the alien had boiled over after finding some selfies on your palmhusk they had taken when you weren’t looking, all freckles and cheesy grins. For the first time since you nearly failed an exam at the beginning of your  legislacerator career, you cried at your desk like a little grub. Tirona had walked in and tried to cheer you up with some memes-- something about a rustblood getting culled for trying to speak up for themselves, and you just lost it. Instead of that shittily-drawn rustblood, you just kept thinking about your lost friend at the wrong end of a culling fork, and you told Tirona as such while shredding a file that would have condemned some goldblood to death for arson. 

What you didn’t tell her, however, was that everything you did for the rebellion you also did for her. Hell, you and your coworkers practically raised the kid after her deadbeat lusus kept fucking off to who-knows-where. You still have daymares about the night you went in to check on her, not too many sweeps ago, and found her in a dirty respiteblock, naked except for a dirty diaper and a single sock. She’d been so dehydrated you and Tyzias both thought she wouldn’t make it through the following day. 

If-- _ when _ you win, no kid will  _ ever _ have to have a lusus like that again. 

But it’s still a while before the moons will set, and you have a hive full of friends and tentative acquaintances alike. 

You grin and turn to the alien and Polypa. “How about we get your dear moirail up to speed on all that’s happened, hm?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiveswap Friendsim, with little dick energy: Tagora is a sneaky bastard who'd gladly call the drones on somebody if it meant he could get their money. Also the only people he puts up with are his coworkers and MSPA Reader.
> 
> Me, with HUGE big dick energy: Tagora's behavior, like so many others of the friends we make, is a product of an every-troll-for-themself society and possible trauma. He's still a sneaky bastard, but he is also smart, caring, and genuinely enthusiastic about delivering justice to those who deserve it. He helped raise Tirona alongside Tyzias, Tegiri, and Stelsa, because he knows that taking care of those who are unable to take care of themselves is always the right thing to do. He also went out of his way to take care of the Reader during their time on Alternia. Because of this, I headcanon Tagora to be a Knight of Space: one who protects and defends others with putting space in between them and their bad situations. In this essay I will-


	10. Of Espionage, Deadly

Your name is POLYPA GOEZEE, and you almost killed your moirail, a jadeblood, and Tegiri’s coworkers all in one go. 

Never before have you fucked up a job quite this badly; not just because you didn’t kill any of your targets but because you could have lost  _ them _ all over again. They disappeared, and they were dead and gone and there was nothing left for you to do but take job after job to try and make ends meet, to fill the jagged, bleeding hole in your bloodpusher that scraped away at you one little piece at a time. It could have been a thousand nights or a thousand sweeps that this carried on, and then--

And then they were underneath you with the point of your blade coming down at their chest. 

They were  _ right there.  _

If you had killed them and Tagora and Stelsa, you know that you would never be able to look Tegiri in the eyes again. How could you, when the one troll you ever really trusted would know that you’re a mercenary, a friend-killer? 

You try to not think about that too much. 

There is, however, a bit of comfort in knowing that you’d be finally tracked down and culled for killing so many trolls at once. Maybe you’re just a coward, but whatever. 

You come back to yourself in time to hear the alien laugh at something. They’re leaning against your side on the loungeplank you’re both relaxing on, pretty head thrown back against your collarbone as they try and muffle their snorting in the sleeve of their hoodie. The heat of their body grounds you to reality like an anchor. 

Unfortunately, they’re laughing because of that damn jadeblood-- Lanque, was it?  _ Ugh. _ He’s gonna be a problem, you just know it. He looks at your moirail with a fondness that doesn’t belong anywhere near his smug bastard face and he looks at you like you’re a piece of shit. Granted, you are definitely a piece of shit, but so is he and sooner or later he’s going to learn that Polypa Goezee doesn’t fuck around when it comes to her quadrants. 

“-- And then this kid hands me a sword, except it’s not really a sword because it’s so shittily made that its corporeality is, like,  _ barely _ hanging in there, and I’m able to hold it! I still have no idea if the thing was existing in multiple dimensions at once or why I was able to actually wield it, but  _ still,”  _ the alien explains fervently, gesturing around them with their hands. “One of these days I’m gonna take you guys to meet my human friends. It’ll be totally chaotic.”

“You have near total control of time and space, and you’re excited because you can hold a sword? No wonder you and Kalbur got along so well,” Tagora scoffs. 

“Gor-Gor, it was the most incredible piece of shit sword I’ve ever laid eyes upon. To only describe the encounter with words is hardly doing it justice,” they shoot back. 

There it is again. Apparently, your moirail has superpowers. 

The story they told about what happened to them was horrifying enough, and you can see as clear as night how much it’s affecting them. When they talked about certain things, like that orb-headed god, they just… caved in on themselves. The light went from their beautiful alien eyes. Their pulse spiked and didn’t go down until they were almost done talking. How they were resting against you, chatting happily with their other friends, was beyond you. You are barely processing anything right now and the horrorterrors know you’ve already been through hell. You have been through hell, and you came out stronger, tougher, meaner, and a deep-seated hatred in your belly for the world that tried to kill you as a child. 

Your moirail is soft and gentle, and yet they survived. 

… The both of you are going to need so many piles. 

But you know that won’t be happening until later. The moons are going down, and tomorrow you will be going on a resistance mission against the Alternian Empire. It doesn’t seem real. 

You wave absently to Stelsa as she takes her leave, with Lanque doing the same not long after. He tries to get your moirail to come back to the caverns with him, pulling out all kinds of excuses like “The kids will miss you,” and “Aren’t all of your things in Lynera’s study?” 

“Go ahead, dude, I’ll see you soon. Tell the others I’ll be back tomorrow,” the alien assures him, the pair leaning against each other as they walk Lanque to the door. 

The jadeblood hums reluctantly. “Be safe.”

“I wouldn’t make my moirail sleep rough,” you tell him coldly. 

Lanque gives you a nasty look over the alien’s head before smiling down at them. The second he strides out the door and shuts it you release a long, low hiss that has Tagora cowering in his rich-boy office chair. 

Your moirail does a double-take. “What was that?”

“Nothing. Just tired.”

Tagora purses his lips and makes a big show of not meeting your eyes. You flash him the hilt of one of your blades. 

“Oh… kay,” they mutter, clearly confused but willing to give it up. “Ready to head out?”

You feel a smile tug on your lips. “Yeah.”

Something in your back clicks when you stand and your forearm is still aching like a bitch from when Bombyx nearly ripped it off, but your mood lightens considerably when the alien thanks Tagora profusely for letting everybody hang out at his hive, leading the way to the door. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Good day!” they call back as they bounce down the stairs. 

“Call me if you need anything!” he yells back from his office, eyeing you shrewdly over the rim of his mug. “And don’t die.”

You roll your eyes and quickly catch up to your moirail. They bump their shoulder against your arm, and you thread your fingers through theirs. It’s like they never disappeared, like the last six perigees were nothing but a bad dream. 

There’s a lump in your throat that refuses to go away. 

“So…” they mumble, not looking at you. Their shoulders are hunched up ever so slightly. “What have you been up to?”

The question is so absurd you make a noise that’s half-laughter and half-crying. “Well, you know. Um. Taking jobs. Wandering around, seeing what the city has to offer.”

“That’s good,” they encourage. 

“If I’d known there was a…  _ resistance faction _ in Thrashthrust, I would have had a lot more to do. People ought to make fliers if they want others to join their clubs, you know,” you joke. 

“Oh yeah, totally. It’s the perfect place for it.”

You huff in amusement. How are they so good at this? “Your friends are… interesting.”

“Dude, you haven’t seen much yet. Wait until you meet Ardata. She’s a Grubtuber who tortures people in her basement.” 

“Why would you make friends with somebody who tortures people in her basement?”

“Well, she tortured me in her basement, and then we had dinner together.”

“I-- what the fuck?”

“We had a long talk about her life choices and what it meant to be a highblood in Alternian society. Then we hugged and she let me go once I promised we could hang out sometime.”

“Why do you insist on hanging around those kinds of people?” you demand. You can’t believe your own goddamn moirail just casually mentioned they were  _ tortured _ in the cellar of some highblood monster. 

“In my defense, I’m kind of a dumbass.”

“Kind of?” you splutter, and you can’t help but start laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. They join in, swinging your joined hands back and forth as you two make your way over to the teal part of Thrashthrust. Maybe you wouldn’t be able to tell Tegiri everything about what was going on, but he did deserve to reunite with his friend and fellow anime nerd. 

The look on his face when you let yourself and the alien in is worth more than any cull bounty. Dogdad, formally known as Tadashi Inu, usually so stoic, goes absolutely apeshit and almost takes your moirail to the ground when he jumps up on them, whimpering with delight. You dodge around the pair, mostly to avoid Tadashi’s tail wagging at terminal velocity and tackle Tegiri in a hug of your own. 

“Surprise,” you giggle. 

“Polypa,” he gasps, squeezing you tightly, before exploding in laughter and dragging you over to the alien and Tadashi. The four of you collapse on the ground in a heap, with Tegiri screeching demands as to how the hell his long-lost friend is alive and well and Tadashi barking up a storm. 

_ “Shinjirarenai! _ I thought you were dead! I thought--” He quickly rubs his eyes under his glasses, which you graciously pretend not to notice. “Just… how?”

“It would take a lot more than death to break up the Eastern Alternian Fine Animated Art Appreciation Society!” your moirail sings, throwing their arms around Tegiri’s neck. He hugs them back, a rare, shameless grin lighting up his face like the moons. 

“It’s a hell of a story,” you summarize. “You could make a whole anime out of this alien’s life, I swear. Absolute insanity.”

“You can say that a-fuckin’-gain,” they yawn, thunking their head down on Tegiri’s side. You can tell that they’re at the end of their energy cycle. Their movements are just a bit slower than usual, and they look ready to pass out right on top of your poor tealbood friend. 

“What happened to you?  _ Anata o mite! _ I can feel your bellow-sac enclosures through your clothes!” Tegiri exclaimed, shoving them off him and furiously patting the alien’s sides, making them squeak. 

“Tegiri, I’m  _ fine,  _ dude. I’m just a little underweight. It’s been… rough,” they say, not meeting his worried gaze. 

“Hmph. Well, I’m making food, and you’re going to eat it! All of it!” 

With a whirl of his trenchcoat, he storms off to the kitchen. The hive is soon filled with the sounds of pots and pans banging, followed by a delicious smell that makes your acid tubes wiggle in anticipation. 

The rest of the morning is spent talking, watching anime, and eating yourself into a coma. Your moirail falls asleep pretty quickly, so you and Tegiri cry a little by yourselves as you retell their story to him. 

“All we can do is support them. Help them fight their inner demons. We all have them, after all,” Tegiri states. He grips the sheath of his sword for comfort. “Some more than others.”

You nod. “Always.”

:::

Tegiri is long gone when you and your moirail wake up the next evening, which doesn’t surprise you given his class schedule. 

“Probably a good thing, too,” you mutter to the alien as you pull your pants back on. “‘Giri would shit a brick if he knew what the rest of our social lives entail.”

Your moirail is still sprawled out on the loungeplank, also devoid of pants, their pale skin glowing silver in the light of the rising moons. “I wish he’d join us. Can’t he see that the system hurts him, too?”

You shake your head. “He’d rather fall on his own blade than admit anything’s wrong with Alternia. He’s always been that way, and he probably always will.”

They don’t say anything, but you can practically feel their thinkpan going at a thousand miles an hour as they get dressed. 

The both of you stop at a breakfast place on the way to the hideout to grab some food-- or, rather, you did, since your moirail needs to stay out of crowded public places for the time being. Walking down the street would be fine, since this is Alternia and people mind their own business, but anything else is a possible risk. 

_ Fifteen minutes until the drone cycles start.  _

The abandoned building isn’t hard to find, even without the address. Turn right on Slitgullet Street, walk on down a few blocks, and boom, there’s the drone factory. Behind it is half a dozen warehouses and an alleyway. A hill rises up to meet a stretch of woodland, and at the crest sits a run-down heap that probably used to be part of the factory. 

“That thing looks like it’s going to come down at any moment,” you hiss. 

“Well, if it starts to go, I’ll just zap us out of there,” your moirail promises. 

“About that…” You pause, wondering how to bring this up without it sounding like you think your beloved friend is lying. “So, you really do have powers? You can teleport?”

“Yep!”

“So how come you didn’t just teleport us here?”

They tilt their head, looking thoughtful. “I can teleport to places I’ve never been before, sure, but it’s a complete shot in the dark as to where I’m actually gonna end up. We might have ended up on top of the roof, or ten feet in the air, or somewhere inside that could be dangerous.”

“Oh, okay.” You’re not sure about their human units of measurement, but you get the idea now. Teleporting is risky. Got it. 

The two of you trudge up the hill to the building and wiggle your way inside through one of the many holes in the walls. It’s dusty and gross, and cloudy moonlight streams down through the holes in the roof, lighting up the wreckage littered everywhere. Judging by the smell, something or  _ someone _ had recently died here. 

“I can’t see,” the alien mutters, grabbing your arm. 

“Not much to enjoy. It’s gross in here.” You carefully guide them around the debris as you make your way towards a less messy part of the building. “Tell that jadeblood boy of yours that next time,  _ I’m _ picking the hideout--”

“Tell me what?”

You bite your tongue when you see your moirail’s eyes light up as a tall, lean figure slinks out of the shadows, followed by three more silhouettes. Two of them you recognize as Tagora and Stelsa, but the girl in the gray jacket is new. 

“Hi, guys! Ready for crime?” they ask, before their brows furrow. “Wait, where’s Daraya?”

Lanque shakes his head. “Bronya grounded the four of us. I’m the only one who managed to sneak out.”

You snort. “Holy shit, you’re a grown-ass man and you still get grounded?”

“Listen, I certainly don’t ask to be treated like a wiggler, so  _ shut _ it.”

“Does your head jade let you speak like that?”

Lanque’s lips peel back to reveal those dagger-sharp fangs of his, and your arm pangs in response. Before you can get ready to fight, your moirail is standing between you two with their hands braced against both of your chests. 

“If you two can’t learn to behave, I’m zapping the both of you right out of here,” they state. 

“Tell your moirail to keep her mouth shut--”

“I  _ will, _ Lanque, as long as you don’t attack her. Polypa, cut the crap. Please. Thank you.”

“Fine,” you agree, glaring at Lanque as you step back. 

_ “Anyways…” _ Tagora sighs, rolling his eyes. “Polypa, this is Tyzias. Tyzias, Polypa. She’s sort of our leader.”

“Hi.” Tyzias nods to you. She’s not much bigger than Tagora, and she looks like she hasn’t gotten a good day’s rest in half a sweep. Her white button-down is about two sizes too big. There’s a noticeable smear across the left lens of her glasses, like she’d grabbed them in a rush. 

“Hey,” you say.  _ This chick is the leader of a rebellion? Huh.  _

“Okay, so you guys basically came up with the whole plan last night, so yeah. Our mutual friend here is gonna teleport in, place the bombs in all five sectors of the factory, and get out. Since you’re going along, you can provide an extra set of eyes to make sure you guys aren’t caught.”

Tagora hands off the backpack to the alien, who nods and shoulders it without complaint. 

“This is where you’re headed.” Tyzias whips out a map and points to an area circled in red, with five circles of blue within. “You have four hours total to find the control rooms, plant the bombs, and skedaddle. There won’t be too many workers there, but you still need to be extremely careful. Avoid the security cameras, obviously.”

“Got it.”

“Yep.”

Stelsa checks her timeteller. “In ten, nine, eight…”

You take your moirail’s hand, and they squeeze it tight. You’re not sure what you’re expecting. Is this even going to work? 

“Five, four, three…”

Your moirail’s eyes shut in deep concentration. 

“... two, one.”

It all happens in a beat of your bloodpusher. At the end of Stelsa’s countdown, your surroundings disappear into a perfect void. There’s no light, no sound, no sensation save the human’s hand clasped firmly in your own. 

And then you’re somewhere else, facing a wall with some sort of stain on it. 

You blink. “I… well.”

Your moirail squeezes your hand again before letting go. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You really do have powers.”

“Damn skippy.”

You don’t know what that means, but then there’s footsteps coming down the hallway adjacent to the one you two are in. You grab your alien and pull them forward into a doorway. Above your head is an airway cover.

_ Perfect. _ With a grunt, you crouch down and leap up to hook your claws into the grating. It only takes one tug for the left end to come loose. Just as you hear the footsteps round the corner, you reach down, grab your moirail, and drag them up into the airway pipe with you. 

Huffing, you close the cover behind you. “I think we’re on the first floor.”

“I could have just zapped us up into the vents, you know.”

You grin at them. “Yeah, but that’s less fun.”

They smile and roll their eyes.  _ Shit, _ you missed them so much. 

“Can you move us into a different part of the airways?” you ask.

“Yep. Hang on.”

Space folds around you again. The both of you are now somewhere else in the pipes. It doesn’t look much different to where you guys were before, but now you can hear voices below. Two of them, to be exact. Right behind you is another airway cover, so you turn around to get a better idea of what’s going on. 

“... Tune out channel XC-DR so I can connect the…”

“No, try the other one, dumbass--”

_ Computer room? _ you mouth to your partner, who purses their lips. Then, their eyes widen when you bring out your daggers. They shake their head frantically, distress making them reel back. 

Your moirail is soft, and you love them for it, but you couldn’t let that stop you now. 

“Showtime,” you whisper, and then you kick the cover off and fling yourself into the first thing that moves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooo, thanks for waiting, guys! Finals were a bitch, but I ended up getting the best grades I've gotten in... a long ass time lol. Have some Polypa POV. It's what she deserves.


	11. Of Crime, Just

You are THE GUARDIAN, and you’re currently listening to the sound of your girlfriend murdering people. 

Okay, so you’re not a judgy person, because that’s like, your thing. You’re the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on. You’re the bridge between tattered hearts and the friend that keeps them safe. You also know that Polypa kills people for a living. She’s an assassin, and that’s  _ her _ thing. 

None of that stops you from nearly passing out as you listen to the death rattle of some teenager. 

The brief whine of psionics makes you taste metal. You brace for another series of wet gasps, but all you get is a dull  _ thud _ of a body hitting the floor.

_ Fuck my life. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-- _

You hear your alien moirail call your name, and it sounds like she’s talking to you underwater. Unthinkingly, you reach out, grab a fistful of space-time, and drag yourself a few meters downwards. Man, if Ultimate Dirk could see you right now he’d laugh until he shit himself. 

Oh, hey, you’re falling now.

There’s a  _ thump _ as another body hits the floor, except now it’s your body. 

Something shoves your shoulder, and then rolls you over on your back. You look up into Polypa’s bemused face. There’s a bit of golden blood on her cheek. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

You try and say “Yeah,” but what comes out sounds more like “Unngh.”

“Okay. You can stay down there if you want.” 

She flips you back over on your stomach, rifles around in the backpack, and pulls out a bomb and some papers you assume are the instructions. You guess she’s setting it, because you hear her messing around with the thing. 

_ Come on, get back up. Come on.  _

You get one arm underneath you, then the other. Somehow you rise to both feet, force yourself to keep your eyes away from the bloody bodies tossed into the corner and aimed literally anywhere else. They end up settling on Polypa.

“Watch this.” She stomps on a tile a few times, making it flip up on one side. Carefully, like she’s setting down a piece of valuable art, she places the bomb underneath and lets the tile fall back into place. “This whole factory is probably older than the damn Grand Highblood. It’s like they’re asking to get infiltrated.”

She’s trying to distract you, which you appreciate even if it’s not working that well. “... Well, next time I see him I’ll ask.”

“You…” Polypa just stares at you for a moment before scrubbing her face with her hands. “Of course. I’m gonna go take care of the bodies. Be right back.”

“Yeah.” You check your watch. Has it really only been four minutes? This was going to be a lot quicker than you thought it was going to be. As long as no more people got hurt, everything was right on track. 

You’re not looking, but you can hear Polypa shoving the dead goldbloods into the janitorial closest on the other side of the room. It won’t do anything to deter a troll from investigating the suspicious scene-- even you can pick up on the stench of death with your crappy human nose, but if something went to shit then it would hopefully buy the two of you a couple of extra seconds. 

Polypa comes back, wiping her hands on her pants like she does this sort of thing every day, and hey, maybe she does. She reaches for your hand. You have to force yourself to take it without hesitation. 

Mission now, feelings later. 

“Ready?” you ask. 

“Yeah.”

You concentrate hard on the map Tyzias showed you, and then on a spot with no other people around, and jump. 

This time you get much luckier. The computer room the both of you appear in is abandoned, and the lights are off. Nobody’s been here for a while, which helps you feel a little better, but for the umpteenth time in the last few days you can barely see anything. 

You sling off the backpack and pull out another bomb. “What time do we set them for?”

“Just let me do it. I know you can’t see.”

“But I haven’t even done anything yet on this mission!” You fumble around with the bomb and feel the timer buttons underneath your fingers. “What time?”

Quick as a flash, the explosive is swiped from your hands. “Nope.”

“Polypa! Come  _ on.” _

“With your luck you’ll just set the thing off.”

“What, no faith in your own moirail? That stings,” you huff. She’s right, though. You like to think yourself a bringer of good fortune and even greater shenanigans, but you can’t deny the occasional nightmare you have over a timeline gone wrong. It’s never the entire situation, which you’re grateful for, because you’ve already got enough trauma to last the rest of your possibly immortal life but it’s still enough to make you nervous about going to sleep. You don’t know if it’s good or bad that you don’t remember everything about the other “outcomes”. 

Then you realize you’ve just been standing there, staring off into the darkness for who knows how long, so you huff and cross your arms to let Polypa know you’re still alive. 

“Done. Also, there isn’t a timer for these things. Tagora has the detonator,” she tells you. 

“Cool. I knew that.”

“Sure you did.”

You kick at the sound of her voice and miss horribly. She snickers, shoves your shoulder, almost knocking you over when you trip over something that feels like a cord. 

All of the computers wake up in a blaze of light that nearly blinds you. You freeze in place, and Polypa covers her eyes with a hiss. 

No alarms go off-- none that you can hear, anyways, but you’re not wasting any time. You lunge for your alien girlfriend and zap the both of you right the hell out of there. 

The next place you appear in looks like some sort of basement. You’re still in the drone factory, because your space-time spidey sense says so. It’s damp and gross and you’re fairly certain your left shoe is in something nasty. 

Neither you or Polypa move or make any noise for what feels like hours. You know it’s only like, thirty seconds, but  _ goddamn _ if it doesn’t take forever to get the courage to take a step closer to your moirail. 

“You good?”

“Yeah.” She smacks you upside the head. 

“Ow! Hey, it wasn’t my fault! You pushed me!”

“Sometimes I wonder how you’ve survived for this long.”

“Yeah, dude, me too.”

You’re pretty sure that nobody else is around, so you peek out from behind a big furnace-looking thing to get a better view of your surroundings. There isn’t much to see-- dust bunnies, junk, more junk, pipes… hey, are those more computers?

“Hey, Polypa? Is it normal for a creepy old basement to have a whole computer lab?” you ask, trotting over to investigate. 

“Uh, I mean, I’ve seen movies?” she offers, leaning over your shoulder to see what you’re looking at. Something in your gut is telling you that this particular point in space and time matters. Intuition rarely fails you, so you listen to what the universe has to say.

You tap on what you assume is the spacebar on a particularly fancy-looking monitor. The screen lights up, presenting a login bar alongside a shutdown option, with a background depicting some anime character Tegiri most likely would have been able to name. 

“Pfft, okay, whose goofy weeb ass works here? I just wanna know,” you snort. 

“Why is this important?”

“I just have a feeling. Any ideas as to what the password could be?”

“... Why would I know?”

“Boo, you’re no fun.”

By some miracle of the gods, or whatever higher power decided to watch over your crackhead self for the night, your eyes wander to a sticky note stuck on a folder that was half-buried under some paperwork. The writing on it is messy, but you’re able to make out six digits scrawled out in red ink. 

0-0-0-4-1-3

Right. 413. That didn’t make your skin crawl in the slightest. 

You type in the numbers and hit the enter key. Of course, it works. 

“That’s weird,” Polypa mutters. 

“Yeah, for real.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I have no idea.” You click on the Goregle icon, close out of it, draw a dick with the cursor on the desktop, and go into Settings and turn the volume down. Man, where was Mallek when you needed him? You wish he was here with you. He’d have a fuckin’ blast getting into this system, you just know it. 

A dash of red catches your eye-- a desktop app shaped like the head of a drone. You click on it and are greeted with a spreadsheet full of dates and times, and next to every date is a location. There’s also notes on what trolls lived where, like Fangrash, which was predominantly rustblood, or Glitch, where a ton of goldbloods live.

It’s only when you see Outglut with today’s date beside it does it hit you. This isn’t just some company organizational bullshit. 

These are plans for drone raids, and in three hours and however-many minutes Outglut was about to get carpet-bombed to hell.

“Polypa,” you whisper. 

You feel her tense up beside you, hard as stone in a matter of seconds. “Oh, no. You don’t… oh,  _ no. _ Yeah.”

She whips out her palmhusk and snaps a couple pictures. You stare down at your hands, forcing yourself to keep breathing. No, you are not going to have two panic attacks in one hour. You’re better than this. You’re the motherfucking First Guardian of the Universe, and you  _ will _ keep your shit together--

You barely even notice Polypa kicking the third electro-bomb under the desk and throwing the carpet back over it until she’s right next to you. 

“Let’s go.” She tugs at your sleeve, and you snap out of the haze you were falling into and throw yourself and your girlfriend through space and into another part of the factory. 

The two of you don’t even bother putting the bombs close to the computer rooms anymore, not like it mattered in the first place. Tagora had said something about the radius of the electromagnetic explosion or whatever would be more than enough to encompass the whole factory, but you had tried to be precise anyways, because… you dunno, better safe than sorry. But that’s a luxury you no longer have. The bombs would wipe out all of the information the drones collected, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop an attack. 

Polypa leaves the last bomb in an air vent, and you wish it a merry exploding-day before teleporting back to the hideout, scaring the shit out of Tagora when you land right behind him.

_ “Augh! _ ” He stares at you, then at Polypa, and hisses. “Don’t  _ do _ that-!”

“That was fast,” Lanque comments. 

“We got a problem! Once the drones complete their maintenance and shit they’re gonna bomb Outglut!” you explain frantically. “Polypa and I found a schedule for when the raids happen.”

Tagora and Tyzias both stare at you, dumbfounded. Stelsa, who was doing her lipstick, fumbles with the tube and drops it on the floor. Lanque’s ears pin back and he slowly gets to his feet. 

“Just look,” Polypa says, shoving her palmhusk at Tagora. Tagora takes it and zooms in on the picture. Somehow, his eyes grow even wider. 

Tyzias groans and drops her head into her hands. “Well, fuck me right up, isn’t this just perfect. Please tell me that you guys got the bombs delivered.”

“We did.”

“Good.”

“The last recovery mission took three wipes to complete, and that was only one neighborhood. How the  _ hell _ are we…” Lanque just shakes his head in dismay. 

Your mind races, trying to figure out a possible solution. 

Ask Azdaja to hack into everybody’s palmhusks and tell them to GTFO? No, you’re pretty sure that if it was that easy it would have already been done. Rally the whole neighborhood and try and take down the drones together? As if. You can’t stop your subconscious from playing back the memories of various raids you’d heard about or been near-- the explosions that seemed to shake the very planet, the screaming, the wail of the sirens that haunted you in your nightmares. 

Wait. 

“The sirens,” you mutter.

Stelsa turns to you. “What?”

“The sirens! We find them and set them off early. I don’t know how much of a difference it’ll make, but maybe it could give everybody a head start,” you explain. 

“That is… highly illegal. The sirens aren’t activated until a certain amount of hives have already been destroyed,” Tagora points out.

“And?”

“It would be a shame if you were to find them. On the corner of Slimewash and Bryght Street,” he continues. “Of course, they’re usually set off remotely, but the system is actually quite simple. It wouldn’t take much to rewire it and trigger it manually.”

Despite everything you can’t help but smile a little. “Yeah, that would suck.”

Stelsa winces, looking almost fearful, before grabbing Tyzias’s hand. “Is this really worth the risk?”

“To save people’s lives? Yes. If you don’t want to come that’s fine, though,” you tell her, before remembering you know jack shit about rewiring things. “... Actually, it would be nice if somebody came along to tell me what wires go where or whatever.”

“If somebody sees you things could get bad real quick,” Polypa says quietly. 

“Yep.”

“Then I’ll come.”

“I’m coming, too.” Lanque smirks. “I’m not ready to go back to the caverns just yet.”

You see the hesitation in Tyzias’s eyes as she glances at Stelsa, then at you, and then back to her matesprit. She’s torn between safety and the rebellion she leads, and you don’t blame her at all. 

“You should go home,” you tell her. “A tealblood in a lowblooded neighborhood is probably gonna get some looks. Besides, the less people who see you guys with me in public, the better.”

Both Stelsa and Tyzias give you grateful looks, and some of the tension leaves Tagora’s bony shoulders. The highbloods aren’t just risking their lives, you know; they’re risking their reputation and status, too. And reputation and status are something you guys are gonna need sooner or later. 

You blow out a breath. The bombs won’t be set off for another three hours. You’re way ahead of schedule, which is way better than being behind schedule, but that still leaves you and your friends with way too much time to kill before you need to do more crime. 

“Sooo…” you say, not meeting any of the troll’s eyes. “What do y’all wanna do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian's powers make everything so much easier, huh? Poor baby is still stressed though. 
> 
> This chapter was tough to write for some reason, so thanks for waiting everybody!


	12. Of Raids and Broken Hives

Your name is MARSTI HOUTEK and there is some dumb bitch climbing up the siren pole behind your hive. 

Watching in utter disbelief, you take a sip of scalding leaf water as the tiny figure uses a rope to haul themself up, one determined pull at a time. If you were more awake you might be impressed; it’s obvious that they’re really going all out on this. They can’t be any bigger than a rustblood male, but despite their size they appear to be fairly strong. You wish it isn’t so cloudy so you could see who the hell this joker is.

It says a whole lot about your life that spying on some cullbait climbing a pole is the most interesting thing you’ve seen all perigee. You go places. You clean. You leave. Sometimes you even get paid, but that’s becoming less of a thing these nights for whatever reason. Some highblood tries to kill you and you get away in the nick of time. Somehow, you keep living.

The newly-healed scar on the back of your neck twinges. 

You give a small hiss when the climber slips and almost falls, only for somebody else to dart out of the shadows, looking up towards the siren. The climber calls down to them but you can’t hear what they’re saying, due to the fact that the siren is up on a nearby hill. With renewed vigor, they tighten their hold on the rope and keep going. 

“Not bad, squirt,” you mumble. 

Another person detaches themself from the cover of a tree, taller than the other two, and joins the other troll on the ground. The first troll gives the newcomer the finger. The newcomer shrugs, their body language betraying no annoyance at the insult. 

_ So these guys are a team, huh? This ought to be good.  _

Your attention snaps back to the climber when they finally reach the siren. They quickly fling their rope over the head of the machine and actually clamber up on top of the thing, like an actual freakin’ monkey. 

_ This dude’s just asking to be culled. Wow. _

You can’t see exactly what’s going on, but they’re obviously messing with the thing. A bit of concern makes your brows furrow as you consider the situation-- that siren could mean the difference between people living or dying. Should you try and stop them? 

… No. Even with Catmom around, you’re still outnumbered, and Catmom raised you to not start stupid fights.

_ “Mrraow?” _

Speak of the devil. You reach down and stroke your lusus’s ears. “Get a load out of this. Maybe I should take up parkour, too. You’d be a great teacher.”

Catmom rears up on her hind legs and stares intently out the sliding glass door. She goes still for a moment, and then her long white tail starts whipping back and forth. 

“What is it?” you demand. 

She meows again, more urgently this time, and starts pawing at the door. 

You hesitate. You don’t want her going out there. That wasn’t an  _ I need to pee _ meow, that was a  _ there’s something up _ meow. 

And that’s when the moons shine through a gap in the clouds, lighting up the silhouette of the climber as they fiddle around with the insides of the siren. 

Even before your thinkpan registers their strange-but-familiar pale skin, or their fluffy white-gold hair, you know who it is. The air whooshes out of your bellowsacs, and you set down your mug on the counter before tearing open the door and sprinting like your life depends on it, Catmom right on your heels. 

The two trolls at the base of the pole are more than ready for you when you scramble up the hill, so you raise both of your hands even as Catmom arches her back and hisses. One is an oliveblood chick with a spiky mane of hair and even sharper claws, and the other is a tall jadeblood boy, which definitely isn’t something you see every day. Both of them look very strong and ready to tear your rustblood ass up like a napkin. 

“I’m a friend,” you say quickly.  _ “Their _ friend.”

The oliveblood stares you down, but before she can respond you hear a shout of surprise from above. “Marsti!”

You look up at the alien, moonlight twinkling in their wide eyes. Something in your worn-out bloodpusher softens. How they’re alive, you have no idea, but they’re really  _ here.  _

“I thought you were dead,” you say, swallowing back something in your throat. 

“Marsti, you can’t  _ be  _ here! There’s gonna be a drone raid!” they cry. 

Any happiness you feel at seeing your long-lost friend evaporates like acid rain in the sunlight. At your side, Catmom arches her back and hisses. Your acid tract does a backflip and falls right out of your anus like a brick. 

You just stare at them. “And how the fuck do you know that?” 

“Because we do! That’s why we’re here, to trigger the siren early so people have a better chance of getting to safety sooner,” the oliveblood snaps, crossing her arms. 

“Like you, for instance,” the jadeblood explains, much more calmly than either of his companions. 

“Guys!” You look back up to your offworlder friend, who is gripping the sides of the pole between their surprisingly strong legs and holding onto something in the siren. “Once I touch these two wires it’s gonna go off.”

“Do it!” the jadeblood calls. He’s clearly more excited about this whole plan, even though he immediately covers his ears and braces for the deafening wail. You and the oliveblood do the same, and you wonder how the fresh hell any of this is actually happening. 

Your disbelief about this entire situation doubles as you watch the alien simply… flash out of sight for a fraction of a second before reappearing on the ground beside the greenbloods. None of you say anything as the siren starts to wail, slowly rising in pitch and volume until all four of you are running away with your hands over your ears. 

Catmom herds everybody inside your hive and shuts the door behind you. Both the oliveblood and the jadeblood are looking around warily, but your alien friend seems more interested in giving you a hug, which you return in your shell-shocked state. 

“So, you can teleport,” you say instead of spilling your guts about how much you missed them. 

“Yeah! Long story. I’m glad you’re okay.” They grin up at you and run a hand through their hair. You’re amazed at all the little details you’re seeing on them now, like all of the colors in their eyes and the barely-there layer of fur that covers their skin. Is it fur? You’re not certain. 

You nod. “Yeah. Me too. I mean, I’m glad you’re okay too.”

The oliveblood comes up to gently pat the alien’s arm, fond but exasperated. “How many friends do you even have?”

“A lot.” They beam proudly and lean against her. “Marsti, this is Polypa, my moirail, and that’s Lanque. Thanks for letting us into your hive so we don’t go deaf.”

“That’s still up in the air,” Lanque groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks like he’s in physical pain from the howling of the siren. You don’t blame him; every time that damn thing has gone off you end up in your recuperacoon with a pan-ache. 

“Sorry babe, should have brought ear protection.”

“Hmph.”

Your friend looks hopefully up at you. “Look, we have fifteen minutes before the first bombs start to fall. Are you gonna come with us?”

“I might live in the shittiest neighborhood known to trollkind, but we do have bomb shelters,” you assure them. “This isn’t my first rodeo. Catmom and I will be fine.”

“... Alright.” They look reluctant, even as Polypa starts tugging them towards the door. “Once I get a palmhusk I’ll text you, okay? Stay safe.”

You give them a smile. When’s the last time you smiled? “I will.”

Lanque nods to you and follows the pair back out into whatever hell awaits them. You watch them go, feeling Catmom circling your legs as she urges you over to the basement door. It won’t be long before the drones show up. 

“Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming,” you sigh as you grab your water bottle and your palmhusk off the counter. “What a fucking night, huh?”

She swats at your ankles for your language, but you can tell she’s feeling the same way. 

<>

Your name is DIEMEN XICALI and you think this might be it.

This isn’t totally unusual for you, given that you are hiveless and broke, but it’s the first time since you lost your lusus that you would be facing a drone raid alone. You can hear the sirens not too far away, accompanied by the occasional sound of somebody screeching and running for cover. The oblong meat product you ate for breakfast churns nervously in your acid tract. 

You’re deciding against making a run for it, given that you have literally nowhere to run to, when you feel the ground shake beneath you as the first bomb hits. The shockwave blows out the windows of a nearby hive not long after. You wince and cover your ears. 

_ Well, this sucks.  _

Beside you, your palmhusk starts ringing. It’s Mallek. 

“You’re literally calling at the worst time ever, dude,” you whisper frantically, shutting it off as fast as you can. Everybody knows the drones can track a palmhusk. Given what you’ve been up to these last few perigees, you wouldn’t be surprised if that actually happens. 

A wave of grief and guilt hits you as you think of what happened to your juggalo friend. Mazzot Sazzox had died saving your stupid self from another clown that had gone insane for whatever reason. In doing so, he gave you enough time to get away from the drones that decided to show up out of nowhere. 

Maybe in another life, you two would have been together, as close friends or maybe even more, but you guess it just wasn’t meant to be. 

A lot of things aren’t.

Another explosion lights up the night sky, closer this time. That’s when the screaming starts, and you pray to your dead friend’s Messiahs that it’s not the five-sweep old that lives just down the road. She deserves to live, they all deserve to live, and even if they don’t survive the next few hours you pray that they’ll make it to wherever they’re meant to go in whatever comes next. 

Where would you go? The Dark Carnival? Probably not, you’re no purpleblood, but one time after Mazzot preached to you about his faith you had the strangest dream about a dazzling carousel and some butterfly-winged angels. Could that be it? 

“Oh, oh  _ fuck _ somebody HELP ME-!”

**_BOOM_ **

You shriek and curl up into a tight ball as you feel another shockwave nearly blow out your eardrums. Whoever was screaming stops. 

The roar of drone engines passes over your bush. You don’t breathe until you can’t hear them anymore and release a shaky exhale. Not too far away, a second siren joins the first. 

“Yeah, I know, I know,” you groan, holding your ears for all they’re worth. 

Something a random guy told you at a party once comes back to you. He was a bronzeblood, you think, with big anter-like horns. 

_ “Do you ever think about how some people believe we’ll be hatched as a higher caste after we die? Like we’re supposed to wait our whole lives for something better, except it’s only better because society made it that way?” _

You were extremely stoned, but you remember telling him, “Dude. That’s deep.”

_ “Thanks. Pass me the blunt?” _

You pass him the blunt and watch some gold chick and her moirail have a psionic orgy in the corner with a couple of rustbloods and a cerulean. She asked if you wanted to join earlier, but you were way too high to even hold a bucket upright, much less bust a nut, so you passed. Maybe you should have said yes so you didn’t have to think about how fucked up everything is about the world you live in. 

_ Everything is so fucked up.  _

The bombs start falling with greater frequency now. Underneath you, the ground rumbles, and the part of you that’s still a kid is scared that it’ll break and you’ll fall into the planet. 

“Get the fuck up,” somebody says. You startle, and then you realize you’re the one who said it. 

You stare at a candy wrapper lying in the dirt an arms-length away, and you repeat yourself. “Get the fuck up, Diemen. You’re gonna die under a bush if you don’t move  _ now.” _

Amazingly, your right arm moves, followed by your left. You push yourself upright. The world spins around you as the blood rushes from your head. 

You grab your palmhusk and do the universe’s sloppiest youth roll out of the bush, taking off running like you’ve never run before. Smoke and fire is filling the air, into your bellowsacs, and you barely make it a block before you have to stop. 

Death smiles and waves at you as you look back just in time to see your bush go up in flames as a bomb blows everything up. You dive behind a nearby tree to avoid the resulting blast, and once it passes you’re running again. 

Up ahead, the hive of the five-sweep old is nothing but a hollow husk. 

You stumble to a stop and stare. 

_ Keep moving, _ you tell yourself, except what you do is charge and leap in through a hole in the wall like some kind of idiot. 

Stuff is on fire, but you remember enough about the layout of your own hive to know where the bomb shelter is. You shimmy around the burning hole where the living room used to be and make your way into the kitchen. The Messiahs must have been listening, because the trap door is unscorched and intact from the bomb. 

You tear it open. “HEY! Hey,  _ kid! _ Can you hear me?”

“YEAH!”

You whoop for joy, and for a moment everything is okay. “We don’t have a lot of time before the drones come back for seconds! Can you walk?”

“Yeah! Sort of!”

It takes a few minutes for the girl to drag herself over to the ladder, but once she hauls herself up to the main floor you can see why. Her left leg is totally broken, and her left ankle is dislocated. Behind her comes her lusus, an elderly beaverrat, who chitters warily before reluctantly allowing you to carry her precious charge around the destroyed living room and out the hole in the wall. 

“Everything hurts,” the girl tells you quietly as you carry her down the sidewalk. 

“I know. Don’t worry, I have a cerulean friend with a medicalizer. He’s let me use it before,” you tell her. 

“So… so I can walk again?”

“You’ll walk again.”

On the way out of the neighborhood, you pass Marti’s hive, which has been completely blown to pieces. You hope she’s okay. 

Once you get this kid’s legs healed, you’d come back for her and Catmom. Something is different about tonight-- the stars are shining so brightly they hurt to look at, and there’s a fragile unease in the atmosphere, like all of Alternia is holding her breath. You keep walking and don’t look at the moons, which stare down at you like a pair of eyes. 

Everything’s fucked up, but it suddenly hits you that maybe, just maybe, you have the power to change that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I hope everybody is doing okay during all of this. If you need somebody to talk to, I'm your person. Seriously. I can't go to any protests right now, because I don't live near any and my parents would never let me go but if I can help cheer somebody up, maybe that would be enough. Stay safe, please. 
> 
> I'm only now starting to realize what a heavy set of topics I'm tackling in this story, and I think the ending of this chapter shows that. Dang.


	13. Of Tension and Talks

Your name is LANQUE BOMBYX and joining a rebellion is either the best or worst thing you have ever done. 

On one hand, it’s a great excuse to sneak out of the caverns and do something exciting. You’re having fun, you’re trying to make the world not a piece of shit, and you get to meet interesting new people who you haven’t lived with since you were literally four. 

On the other, you now have to deal with things like getting into fights with mercenaries (your shoulder is  _ still _ sore), putting even more effort into keeping Bronya and Lynera off your ass so they don’t suspect anything, and just generally trying to not get culled. It’s been hard not to feel more optimistic, though-- it’s hard to be bored when you’re constantly running around committing all sorts of crime. 

There’s also the fact that despite dating the aforementioned mercenary bitch who mauled you, your dearest and most beloved party buddy has returned at last. Granted, they returned severely underweight, traumatized, and injured, but they  _ came back,  _ and a little piece of yourself that you didn’t even know had been missing fell back into place.

Not that you’d ever tell them that. 

Ahem. 

“You wanna zap back up to the caverns or are we walking?” 

Your friend’s voice jolts you out of your thoughts, and you look down at them to meet their gaze. That oliveblood-- Polypa, had picked up a last-minute “job” as soon as the three of you got out of the danger zone that was the lowblood neighborhood. It was pretty clear that she didn’t want to leave her moirail alone with you, but the alien, bless their oblivious soul, just shooed her off with a demand that she be careful. 

“Believe me, I am no hurry,” you mutter, kicking a pebble out of your path. It clatters down the sidewalk and into the street. Bronya is no doubt going to be furious with you for sneaking out while grounded, like she is with everything you do that isn’t related to being a good little cavern worker. You’re not looking forward to facing her wrath and possibly the palm of her hand. 

“Yeah. I hope Bronya isn’t mad at me for dipping,” they mutter, looking a bit embarrassed. 

You scoff. As if. “Bronya could never be mad at you, trust me. Just say you went along with me and the kids to keep us out of trouble and now you’re bringing me back.”

“I’m assuming she doesn’t know anything about our… club.”

“No, darling, and it’s going to stay that way for as long as possible.”

They frown. “Would she really be so pissed? I mean, she has her little  _ technically legal _ nursery… which I know nothing about, because I’ve  _ totally _ never helped out in there. Ever.”

“Bronya…” You have to do some thinking to come up with an explanation that wouldn’t be just calling the head jade a hypocritical piece of shit. You want the alien on  _ your _ side. “Isn’t focused on the big picture. Nor does she want to be. Her whole world is the caverns, and I think if anybody tried to challenge that…”

“Things would be bad. Alright.” They look disappointed but don’t say anything else on the matter, which you appreciate. 

You wrap your arm around their waist and pull them closer to you. They lean into your side with a sigh, tired, and for a moment you let yourself pretend that it’s just the two of you, walking back from a party like old times. No disappearances, no rebellion, just a strange pair of friends on their way home.

“Once we get back you’re taking a shower,” you say. 

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“That Gorjek was one-hundred percent right about your pores and that you stink like a corpse? Possibly. Probably.”

They elbow you in your grub scars and take off running when you swat at their head. 

:::

As you feared, Bronya is waiting for you at the mouth of the cave when you and the alien arrive, hands on her hips and ears flat against the sides of her head. 

If looks could kill you’d be a dead man. She opens her mouth, visibly swelling up in anger as you approach, but then her eyes flicker over to your mutual friend and something in them softens. Not for the first time, you’re selfishly grateful for them being around, if not just because you don’t have to deal with the brunt of Bronya’s anger. You know she refuses to make herself look bad in front of outsiders, the snake. 

“Hi. We’re back,” they say sheepishly. 

“And I’m not drunk this time,” you add, smiling down at her.  _ Try and swing on me while I’m sober, bitch.  _

“Two whole nights out, in a row, while you’re grounded, and you brought the  _ kids?” _ Bronya hisses. “And our friend? They’re supposed to be recovering!”

“I’m healed now, actually! We met up with a pal who helped me out. Also, I went out of my own accord,” the alien interjects. 

Bronya huffs. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better--”

They give her finger guns. 

“-- but that doesn’t change the fact that Lanque directly disobeyed orders.  _ Again. _ What were you even doing?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation every time I want to take a break from this hellhole,” you snort. Out of the corner of your eye, you see your friend begin to nervously look around as if pretending like none of this is happening. You don’t blame them. 

“You owe everybody an explanation for why they had to cover your duties while you were off doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who!”

“We get it, Ursama, I’m a whore. Can we go now?”

“That’s not what I-!”

_ “Lanque’s baaacckkkk!” _

Your savior comes in the form of a young lady flying out of the caverns at top speed and latching on to your waist. The force is almost enough to knock you over, but thankfully you were given enough warning to anticipate the attack. 

The anger brewing in your gut vanishes like mist in sunlight. Wanshi beams up at you, one fang missing from her top set of teeth.  _ Looks like her adult teeth are finally coming in. _ “There she is! Were you good while I was gone?”

“Nope!”

“That’s my girl,” you praise, scooping her up and setting her on your hip. 

“Wanshi. Did you finish sweeping the classroom?” Bronya asks, stern but far more kind.

“Duh.” Wanshi sticks her tongue out at Bronya and giggles when the head jade gives her a look. The alien takes notice of her missing fang and starts fussing excitedly over it-- you guess losing wiggler teeth is important in their culture as well. 

It’s just the distraction you need to tighten your hold on Wanshi and casually toss an arm around the alien’s bony shoulders. You look past Ursama to the woods beyond, focusing your gaze on something. “Hey, Bronya? Aren’t those cholerbear tracks over there?”

She stiffens and whips around to follow your line of sight. “What?”

_ “Run!”  _

You grab the alien’s hand and break into a sprint, pulling them along with you despite their yelp of surprise. Wanshi wraps her arms around your neck and hangs on as you make a sharp right, dodge the girl who’s up next for guard duty, before darting down a corridor that’s rarely used except for meetings. The lights aren’t even on, which helps you avoid detection as some of your fellow cloistermates pass by the adjacent tunnel. 

There’s an abandoned classroom up ahead, and the door is slightly ajar.  _ Perfect.  _

Wanshi’s snickering uncontrollably by the time you set her down and kick the door shut behind the three of you. Beside you, the alien joins in, looking guilty, but you can easily see the huge grin they’re trying to suppress. You lock the door and herd them and the younger jadeblood farther into the darkness.

“I can’t believe she fell for that!” Wanshi whispers gleefully. “Oh, Lynera’s gonna be so-!”

Sharp, angry footsteps come storming down the corridor, their owner testing each door with a vengeance. All three of you freeze. 

Wanshi dives into the lowest space on a bookshelf and flattens herself against the far side of it. You look around frantically, cursing your height, only for a pair of small hands to shove you into the corner farthest away from the door. 

You look down at your friend, who blinks up at you, pupils completely blown out. It’s a second before you remember that they can’t see well in the dark. You’re flattered that they trust you enough to willingly put themselves into a situation where they’re so obviously vulnerable, and perhaps a little turned on.

“Lanque! Come  _ on!” _ you hear Bronya growl in exasperation, and you suddenly remember another situation very much like this one: you and the alien in a dark room, with Bronya hunting you down like an enraged lusus. You’re holding them close to you, and you feel the thrumming of their heart like a featherbeast’s, the heat of their body, their distinctive scent filling your lungs. It’s the smell of something fiery yet sweet, completely unlike anything else on this planet. 

Your gaze drops back down to them from the doorway. Their face has a reddish tint to it now. “Hm. This seems familiar.”

They swallow, open-mouthed and flustered. It’s irresistible. 

“Going to yell for Mother, are we?” you whisper, pulling them even closer. 

Dull nails dig into your forearms. “I made that up to you a long time ago, babe.”

“Oh, I know, sweetheart. I just like making fun of you.”

“If that’s making fun of me, you should know I’ve had nastier conversations with the grubs in the nursery. Looks like somebody lost his touch while I was away,” they hiss under their breath. A slow smile spreads across their face as you bare your fangs at them. They’re totally fearless and it enrages and impresses you in equal measures. 

The doorknob rattles. Both of you stiffen. Neither looks away. 

It’s too long before the footsteps fade away, and even longer before you move. Then again, you’re forced to move because the first thing the alien does upon deciding they’re in the clear is to kick you in the shins like the little gremlin they are. 

“You little-!”

“Sucks to suck, pretty boy. First one to your respiteblock gets the shower.”

“You do know I’m much faster than you, right? And stronger-?”

You don’t even get to finish your sentence before they disappear in a flash of light. 

Spots dance before your eyes like you just got whacked upside the head with Elwurd’s bat, making you rapidly blink to clear them away. You don’t even realize you’re swearing up a storm before something tugs on your sleeve. 

Wanshi looks up at you in awe as you begin to hate yourself even more than you already do.    
“Are you guys gonna need a bucket? ‘Cause I can go get one for you if you want.”

“... If you don’t ever tell a single soul what just happened I’ll bring you to wherever you want to go in the city the next night I’m off.”

“And you have to roleplay with me.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Deal!”

“Deal? I’m the one making a deal, you brat--”

Somehow, you manage to wrangle the hellion back into her respiteblock without attracting the attention of either Bronya or Lynera, which is a win in your book. When you get back to your own dorm, however, you’re greeted with the sight of an alien lounging on your carpet and a damp towel serving as their plate as they munch on a sandwich. 

“Don’t worry, the towel’s mine,” they say in lieu of a greeting. Their post-shower scent clings to everything like a perfume. It’s distracting; you need a distraction. 

“I still don’t know how you manage to eat anything with those useless teeth of yours. Do humans only eat soft food?” you snort. 

“At least we don’t eat raw ass  _ bones _ like some sort of wild animal.”

“Bones are good for exoskeleton development and strength.”

They pretend to gag. You throw your jacket at them and ignore their complaining as you go get changed in the other room. For the millionth time, you’re blown away by the fact they’re here. They’re here, and you’re both teasing each other and flirting and fighting just like they never even left. 

You have no idea why this whole ordeal is impacting you so much. It’s not like you two were joined at the hip or anything before. 

“Hey, Lanque?”

The real world returns as your friend’s voice registers in your thinkpan. “Yes?”

“How old are jadebloods when they have to start living at the caverns?”

“... Well, it depends. If there’s a shortage of workers at a nearby cloister then any jades nearby have a greater chance of getting chosen. Some start as young as three sweeps, some don’t have to until they’re six or seven.”

They’re silent for a moment. “How old were you? I mean, you don’t have to tell me--”

“I was four.” 

“Oh.”

You grab a frozen burrito out of your hull and heat it up for dinner. When it’s ready, you throw it on a plate and rejoin the alien in the other part of the dorm. Their eyes are looking somewhere far away as you sit down beside them to lean against the loungeplank. The pajama shirt they’re wearing is far too big for them, draping listlessly over their petite frame, and your jacket is slung across their shoulders. 

“I had a revelation the other night,” they tell you. 

“Oh?”

“This is fucked up.”

“Anything in particular, or is this a ‘fuck my life’ sort of situation?”

“The caverns, actually. When we were sneaking out to go meet up with the teals, I just…” They gesture to nothing. “Jades really don’t get to be their own person, do they? When you get cloistered, that’s it. The rest of your life is devoted entirely to taking care of babies, of other people. And maybe some of them really like it! And they’re happy and find fulfillment in raising kids. But there’s so many people who just  _ don’t. _ How are you supposed to find out who you are if you’re supposed to give everything you have away?”

You stare at them in amazement. 

“Wanshi’s still losing baby teeth, for fuck’s sake! She should be outside, running around with other kids her age, getting dirty, having fun. She’s not-- she’s not supposed to be a  _ mother! _ Not yet, anyways, if that’s what she wants when she grows up. Also, why the hell do you guys have to wear uniforms in your own home? Why are there  _ drones _ in your own home? Jesus fucking Christ, this whole planet is a nightmare.”

“Don’t let Bronya hear you say any of that,” you say, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind after they stop to catch their breath. 

Your friend groans and buries their face in their hands. “Look, Bronya’s great. She’s one of the most caring people I know. But can’t she see how this hurts a lot of the jades she’s supposed to be leading?”

“Again, dear. The caverns are her world.”

Eyes that are somehow green and brown and blue all at once train on you with a ferocity you’ve never seen before on your sweet-natured friend. “Lanque. When we win, no jade will ever have to live in a cloister, not if they don’t want to. Nobody will ever have to give up their life like that again. I can’t tell you how, or when, but it’s gonna happen whether the world likes it or not.”

“Don’t…” You swallow back something hard and painful in your throat. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“It’s not a promise. It’s a  _ threat.” _

You can’t help but laugh, even as something in your cold, twisted bloodpusher unravels and softens. If this little alien, who’s already half-asleep on your floor, says that they’re gonna change the world… well, who are you to not believe them? 

You drag them up onto the loungeplank before they can pass out on you. And when you fall asleep as well, it’s with a racing thinkpan and strange dreams of a planet with vast blue oceans and a single silver moon hanging low in the night sky. 

:::

The alien’s gone the next evening when you wake up. They did, however, leave a note for you on the loungeplank. 

  
  
  


_ Lanque, _

_ Thanks for letting me crash at your place. 10/10 loungeplank, would sleep on it again. Don’t sneak out today, I’m going to be at the bombed neighborhood helping out anybody who wants it. Say hi to the girls for me.  _

_ Have a good night, bitch.  _

_ XOXO, _

_ \- M _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably tell that Lanque is one of my favorite Hiveswap trolls, because this fucker had me hooked the second he showed up in his route. He's going to be a protagonist in this story for several different reasons. 
> 
> And yes, he and the Guardian have a very... interesting relationship. LOL. 
> 
> Also, over 3000 reads??? Already??? Holy FUCK. As a celebration, here is some fun facts about the Guardian!
> 
> \- Their first name begins with a M, as seen as their note at the end of the chapter. Their REAL name. 
> 
> \- They're 4 feet 11 inches tall.
> 
> \- They're about 20 years old. 
> 
> \- They're extremely empathetic, to the point of it being painful sometimes.
> 
> \- We'll get their full backstory later in Riverbound. 
> 
> \- They are nonbinary, but have used she/her pronouns in the past. 
> 
> \- They have freckles across the bridge of their nose. 
> 
> \- Pansexual/transgender icon. 
> 
> \- Has a LOT of lower body strength. 
> 
> \- Probably ADHD.
> 
> \- They have hazel eyes.
> 
> \- They have family... somewhere.


	14. Of Finding and Losing

You are THE GUARDIAN, and you have been crawling around in destroyed hives for hours. There’s only so much you can do, but you have to do  _ something _ to help these trolls or you’re going to spontaneously combust and die. So far, you’ve pulled out ten teenagers and three younger kids, all alive and mostly uninjured, as well as their lusii. It’s a good start, but it’s not nearly enough for you to want to take a break just yet. Of course you’re exhausted, but you can’t bring yourself to stop, because if you do you’re going to have to look at the utter devastation that’s happened to this neighborhood, to these people. 

You’re so fucking angry. It eats you alive from the inside and burns at your skin like acid. The feeling hurts, because you’re not an angry person, you’re just  _ not.  _

And where the  _ frick _ is Marsti’s hive? 

From your vantage point on top of some poor kid’s destroyed home, you can see everything for like, half a mile, but you can’t point out any distinguishing features in the landscape. Her place was by a hill, right? Yeah, you had to climb up a hill to get to the siren… 

“God, this sucks,” you mutter to nobody in particular, not even to God, because you’re not religious and you’re the only person around for what feels like lightyears. 

It takes a good ten minutes to climb down from the wreckage, and another thirty to decide on a random direction and leave that part of Outglut behind. You investigate a few more hives along the way, but you don’t find anybody else. Whether that’s good or bad isn’t clear. 

Just as you decide to just try and zap over to Marsti’s place you trip over something and eat shit on the pavement. 

“Watch it!” a low voice hisses, only to inhale sharply once you push yourself to your knees and turn around. 

Folkyl’s blind gaze stares directly into your own, even though you know she can’t see you. Her lips are parted and she’s drawing in air through her teeth to smell, like cats do, except cats don’t usually tell you to watch yourself when you trip on them. 

“Sorry, dude. Long time no sniff,” you joke. 

“What the… is that you, normie?” she demands, disbelief lacing her words. “Am I fucking…  _ no way!  _ We thought your alien ass got culled!”

“I lived, bitch,” you laugh, reaching over to pat her shoulder. “Got kidnapped, went on some adventures, found my way back here. How have you been?”

“It’s been shit,” she tells you bluntly, but there’s no frustration behind it. She’s been alive too long to care, you suppose. It’s something you’ve always respected her for. Sure, she calls you a “normie” and makes fun of the way you smell (seriously, though, what is up with trolls and commenting on your scent?) but you know it’s all in good fun. 

You look around at the ruined neighborhood. “Yeah. Why the hell are you even here?”

“Kuprum wanted to come and loot off dead people. My matesprit wants to meet up so she can fuss over me and give me food.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you have a matesprit,” you say, plopping your rear end on the sidewalk. Might as well take a breather while you’re already down. You also decide to ignore the fact Kuprum likes to steal from the dead, even though you know it’s not your place to judge.

“Marsti. You know her,” Folkyl scoffs. 

Relief surges through you like a tidal wave. “She’s alive?”

The goldblood hacks out a laugh and slaps her knee. “Are you kidding? It’d take a lot more than some regular-ass drone raid to kill that woman. And her lusus.”

“Good.” Whew, you feel a lot better now. 

“Sap. Don’t go making any moves on my girl, or you’re done for.”

“Hey, I might be a slut by trolls standards but I’m no hivewrecker,” you snort. Marsti’s gorgeous, the whole of Thrashthrust probably knows that, but she isn’t your type. 

A shout echoes from up the street, and you both turn to see the girl in question, Catmom, and Kuprum making their way over to you. Catmom is wearing a kitty harness with a little backpack on it, which is so frickin’ cute you think you might cry.

Kuprum stops dead in his tracks when you make eye contact with him, stares, and then a huge grin splits his face as he runs the rest of the way over to punch you in the shoulder. 

“Ow! Fucker!” You kick him in the butt, but you’re just as glad to see his greasy self alive and well. There’s a new scar across his left cheek and he’s a little taller than when you last saw him, but it’s good to know he’s the same old asshole. 

“Fucking incredible. Everybody thinks you’re dead for half a sweep and then you show up to sit around in the dirt with my moirail? Strange flex, but alright.” Kuprum pulls some candy bars out of his backpack and tosses you one, which you gratefully accept. 

Marsti huffs as she sits down next to Folkyl. “That’s nothing. When I first saw them again they had climbed the siren pole behind my hive to prematurely set it off.”

“Why?”

“Give everybody a head start in getting somewhere safe.”

Kuprum looks impressed. “That’s illegal. Hell yeah.”

“Thanks!” You give him a thumbs-up as you munch on your candy bar. 

You would have liked nothing more than to sit around and catch up with your friends, but before you can ask everybody what they’ve been up to Marsti stiffens with a growl, pointed ears swiveling forward to catch some noise you can’t pick up. Folkyl and Kuprum scuttle back into the shelter of the nearest burnt-down hive. 

Fate comes to kick you in the ass as a familiar figure swoops down from the sky on a hoverboard. It’s Mallek, and he does not look like a happy camper. 

“Dude! What’s up?” you yell. 

“We’ve got a problem, that’s what’s up!”

You jump to your feet and rush over to him, ignoring Marsti’s hiss of concern. Mallek lands in the middle of the street, running a hand through his hair and glancing around as if worrying about being followed. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all, which worries you tremendously, because if you know anything at all about Mallek Adalov it’s that he  _ loves _ to sleep. 

By the time you reach him he’s already going off. “I thought I’d give it some time, because I didn’t want to give any nearby drones something to track-- texting him, I mean, and he’s already probably on a cull list somewhere, I just… I dunno! But it’s been all night, and I--”

“Mallek _. _ My man. Take a deep breath,” you instruct. What the hell could possibly be so bad that Mallek is panicking? Mallek  _ never _ panics. 

Mallek obeys and takes a deep breath, holding it for a couple of seconds before letting it go. “Diemen was in this neighborhood when it got bombed.”

Every drop of blood in your body turns to ice.  _ Oh. _

“He texted me afterwards saying that he made it out okay, but he had a kid with him with a broken leg or something. I’m like ‘Yeah, of course, come over’, and I wait, and-and he just never shows up,” Mallek breaths. He sucks in some more air before continuing. “I’ve been searching all of Outglut since the sun went down.”

“You can’t track his palmhusk?”

“No. I only know his last location before it disappeared. It was probably destroyed.”

“Fuck.” You stare up at the stars.  _ “Fuck. _ Okay. Let’s go back there, see what we can find.”

A yell interrupts your conversation. “Yo, alien! This guy bothering you?”

You turn to yell back to Kuprum, who’s all puffed up like an angry chicken despite being a skinny lowblooded dude. You love your friends so much. “Nah, man, this is Mallek! He’s great, when we met he thought I was a robot!”

Folkyl cackles in amusement, and even Marsti cracks a smile. 

“It was only for a little bit,” Mallek complains, almost to himself, before looking down at you with those big blue eyes that have no business being so adorable. “You coming?”

“You bet.” You hold up a finger and race back over to the goldbloods and Marsti. 

“Ditching us for the highblood, huh?” Folkyl sniggers. 

You make a face. “Sorry, guys. A friend of mine and Mallek’s went missing after the drone raid, and well… we gotta go find him. Keep an eye out for a short rustblood boy with an oblong meat product obsession for me, will you?”

Kuprum suddenly looks way more interested. “Oh, damn, the hiveless guy? Yeah, sure. He’s alright. For a total loser, that is.”

“We know Diemen. There was this psionic orgy at a party, and I asked if he wanted in, but he was too busy with this bronzeblood--” Folkyl begins, but you just groan and stomp away to join Mallek, her taunting laughter ringing through the streets. 

Unfortunately, Mallek’s smirking as well. “I like your friends.”

“I’m glad one of us does. Fly or teleport?”

“Fly. For old times sake.”

Everything is kind of shitty at the moment, but you can’t help but smile as you hop up on the hoverboard with him and wrap your arms around his waist. Mallek kicks the hoverboard into gear and you hang on for dear life as the two of you shoot off. It’s a damn good thing you guys have done this like a million times already, because even though it’s been a while you remember how to lean with him as he flies around hives, and then buildings. 

You whoop as Mallek corkscrews around a skyscraper. Below the hoverboard, the ground is so far away scuttlebuggies are no bigger than ants. The wind is whipping your hair around everywhere-- man, you need a haircut-- and you’re fucking freezing because all you’re wearing is the hoodie Mallek gave you once, jeans , and a pair of combat boots that Elwurd grew out of a long time ago, but you can’t stop laughing. Mallek grins back at you over his shoulder, goofy as all hell before joining in. Everything feels like it’s going to be okay. 

_ Hang on, Diemen. We’re on our way.  _

:::

Of course, Diemen’s last known location is a super-creepy back alley. The buildings on either side are so tall no moonlight can get in, because why not, with a dash of the smell of something that smelled faintly of roadkill to complete the ambiance. You almost run into a dumpster one or two times as Mallek leads the way due to your weak-ass eyesight. 

“If we die, I call haunting that pile of garbage over there.” You point to a small lump of stuff on the ground. 

“Yeah... that’s a dead body.”

_ For crying out loud. _ “Ah.”

“They get first dibs around here, I think.”

You sock him in the bicep as he snickers. “Ass.”

“Shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes--”

Mallek’s palmhusk beeps. You peer around him to see a flashing red dot on the screen, marked by a green grid thing of where you guys currently are. 

“This where Diemen vanished off the face of the planet.” He stuffs the palmhusk into his pocket and looks around. “No signs of a struggle. No blood. I can’t smell anything.”

“I take that to mean that dead body back there…”

“Definitely not.”

“Good.” 

“Anything noteworthy from an alien’s perspective?”

You groan in frustration. “Humans are diurnal, dude. We’re supposed to be awake during the day and we sleep at night when it’s dark. I can’t see  _ shit.” _

“Okay, okay.”

Mallek emerges from the other end of the alley, with you right behind him. The temperature is dropping off quick, making you huddle against the ceruleanblood for warmth even though he’s far colder than you are. You’re pretty sure this is the tail end of what passes for winter on Alternia despite the lack of snow on the ground.

Out of the corner of your eye, something glints in the moonlight, and you turn to see a security camera aimed at the street you guys are on. 

You can’t believe your luck. “Mallek, look!”

He follows your pointer finger to the camera and grins ear-to-ear. “Oh, _ hell _ yes.”

Mallek whips out his phone again and taps in the address of the building on your left while you do a little victory jig. The both of you are still in the shadows, so you’re not too worried about your presence being noted just yet. 

After that you guys race over to his apartment, and you’re high on adrenaline and optimism. Mallek locks the door behind you once you’re inside, so you take the lead and race up to his respiteblock/workspace/gaming area, with him hard on your heels. 

“Alright, so first we put in the address…” He parkours his way over a mountain of random shit and into his desk chair. “... get into the security system, find the tapes, organize the data by date, strip the footage…”

He keeps rambling on excitedly about hacker stuff that you don’t know anything about, but you’re just as hype as he is for the breakthrough. You watch, impressed, as he expertly navigates his way through a series of screens, each with more tabs than you have fingers, and puts in so many passcodes with so many numbers your head hurts just looking at it. It must be really nice, having more than one brain cell. 

He’s through in fifteen minutes. 

“Mallek. Buddy. You gotta say it,” you beg him. 

“Say what?”

“... You know.”

“... No.”

“Please?”

Mallek stares up at you and sighs. “Fine. Hacker voice: I’m in.”

_ “Yes!” _

It’s a few more moments before he finds the footage and begins to sort through everything. None of it makes any sense to you. 

Before long you get antsy and start looking around for something to do while Mallek does his big boy work. “Hey, where’s Snakedad? I didn’t get the chance to say hi last time.”

Mallek goes strangely silent. Then, he turns to you, not looking you in the eyes. All of his previous enthusiasm drains right out of him. 

“Mallek?” you ask, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

He exhales tiredly and finally looks up at you. “My lusus… he was already ancient when he picked me out of the caverns. He… he died a few perigees ago. Nothing I could do, he was just really old.”

You feel like you’ve been sucker punched. “Oh, God, Mallek--”

“But it’s fine! Lots of kids don’t get as lucky as me. Some lusii die of awful stuff like, like tumors, or they get murdered, so… I’m lucky. I even got to be there when he went.”

It’s definitely  _ not _ fine, you can tell just by looking at his face, but you don’t tell him that. Instead you just make your way over to him and wrap your arms around him. He stiffens for a second, and you immediately lean back so you can give him space, only for him to pull you tightly against him like he’s lost at sea and you’re a piece of driftwood. He doesn’t cry or anything, just tremble slightly as you comb your fingers through his hair. 

When’s the last time he’s been held like this, if at all? When’s the last time somebody expressed that they care about him? 

In a society that idolizes tearing down the vulnerable, what’s to keep a kid from isolation once he loses everything? 

“You’re really warm,” Mallek mumbles into your chest. 

You smile, leaning down to knock your foreheads together. “You’re really cold.”

“Thanks. For being here, I mean.”

You know what he means. The words send little prickles of sunshine into your heart, lighting you up from the inside out. 

Oh, hey, those blue eyes are really, really close.

For a second, you wait for him to make the next move, to do something,  _ anything, _ but then you see something on the screen that freezes you in place. 

It’s Diemen, supporting a little rustblood girl with a leg that’s bent in the wrong place. He’s talking to an indigoblood riding some Alternian version of an electric scooter. And maybe the indigoblood is wearing a bulky black jacket and a helmet that obscures most of his lean figure, but you’d recognize that greasy ponytail anywhere. 

Everything clicks into place. 

“Aw, fuck  _ me.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mallek: *experiences something traumatic or anything bad in general*
> 
> Mallek: Yes, I am in the perfect emotional state to make a move on my crush. No, I do not take criticism.


	15. Of Storming the Fortress

Your name is MALLEK ADALOV and you think you might have to stop your friend from committing murder. 

One moment everything is totally perfect (or at least better than it’s been in some time): your favorite person in the whole world is here in your arms, your foreheads pressed together, their beautiful eyes shining with warmth and affection, and now…

Well.

They’re not screaming or running for the door with weapons drawn or anything, they’re just… silent. Cold. Something in the way their face is set is so unnerving and completely unlike anything you’ve seen from them before. It’s a little scary to watch. 

You need to bring them back to reality. “You know that guy?”

They grimace. “Unfortunately. His name’s Zebruh Codakk, and he’s the worst kind of sleazy, manipulative, preformative lowblood ally on this whole planet. Honestly, what the  _ hell _ did Scratch have me on when I made friends with that dude?”

“Is he dangerous?” 

“He likes to invite vulnerable, hiveless lowbloods into his ugly-ass mansion under the guise of hospitality and then just… have them slave away for him. What other choice do they have? What can they do, call the drones?” they spit. “Diemen and that girl with the broken leg are definitely in there.”

Anger rises up inside of you, hot and wild, but you push it back down and force yourself to think rationally about this whole situation. Alright, so a gross, potentially dangerous highblood has your buddy, some injured little kid, and who knows how many others in his prison-hive. Storming the place and demanding Codakk release them is out of the question. You’d just get the drones called on your ass, and even though you wouldn’t get culled because of your place on the hemospectrum you’d still get a mark on your record. Things would turn out even worse for your dear friend.

“We can’t do this alone,” the alien says just as you come to the same conclusion. 

You bite your lip. “Will your…  _ group _ be up for it?”

“Taking down somebody who willingly and happily abuses his power over lowbloods? They better be. Or I’m going in there myself.” Determination lights them up from the inside out. Your bloodpusher skips a beat as the moonlight coming in through the blinds touches their pale skin to a thousand different colors of pink and green and gold. 

You hop up from your chair. “Not without me you’re not.”

The alien beams up at you, and you really want to kiss them but now’s not the time. Man, if Snakedad is watching you from the afterlife you just  _ know _ the old guy is cussing you out for letting your bloodpusher do the thinking. This strange, incredible person is going to be the death of you, but for some reason you can’t bring yourself to care. 

:::

Everything moves pretty quickly after that. 

You let the alien borrow your palmhusk to text Tyzias, who contacts everybody else to let them know what’s going on. If this is going to work, the rebellion is going to need all hands on deck and a ton of good luck. This isn’t going to be like the stuff they’ve done in the past-- you hacking into whatever mainframe as a favor, or having that goldblood-oliveblood duo blow something up. This was going to be an actual face-to-face confrontation. 

The teals have class all night, and according to Daraya there’s no way she and Lanque can sneak out at the moment, leaving you and the alien to sleep the day away so you don’t go insane from anticipation. 

:::

The following night everybody meets up at Tyzias’s hive to discuss the game plan, exchange weapons, and in a couple of cases sweep the alien up into a bone-crushing hug. 

“You will not BELIEVE how much we missed you!” the oliveblood, Konyyl, bellows. It’s a damn good thing your friend’s ribs are healed, because the strength of the hug they’re receiving from the girl would have definitely caused some damage if they weren’t. 

“I don’t think they’re breathing,” her goldblood partner notes. What’s his name again? Addara? Ajadda? He kind of looks like an anime villain, but he’s got some sick-looking tech on his person that you’re already itching to ask him about. “Yo, shorty. Blink twice if you need help.”

“I’m okay,” the alien wheezes. They pat a giant muscle on Konyyl’s left shoulder before being set down. 

“You better be! We were worried  _ sick _ about you!”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yes you were, you FUCKING LOSER.”

“Okay, maybe I was a  _ little _ concerned after you didn’t show up for flavordisk dinner…”

The alien just laughs and pats his arm. “I missed you too, ‘Daja.”

“Hmph.”

Polypa shows up just as Tagora and Lanque start getting into a heated discussion about horn care. You both nod to each other-- you don’t really know her that well, but if she’s your crush’s moirail then she’s cool. 

The sound of somebody clapping their hands together several times catches your attention. “Okay, bitches and bastards of the jury, listen up!”

You turn to see Daraya and Tyzias standing on the loungeplank. You’ve met Tyzias a few times before through Tirona, but you’ve never had a chance to talk directly with Daraya. 

_ How old is she? Six? _ Whew, you just know this kid is gonna get a good ass-whoopin’ from Ursama when she gets back to the caverns. 

Konyyl snorts. “What’s the gender-neutral version of a bitch or a bastard? Bitchtard?” 

“Both bitch and bastard are gender-neutral. Trust me, I’m non-binary,” the alien says. 

“Okay, cool.”

Daraya rolls her eyes. “The plan is simple. Our dearest off-worlder friend shows up at Codakk’s doorstep looking to catch up. They locate Xicali, the chick with the broken leg, and if possible, where the rest of the prisoners are being kept. Thanks to our tech-savvy associate Azdaja, we will know where the alien is at all times. Once they give the signal, we break in through the windows, find them and the prisoners, and escape before the drones are called.”

The alien raises their hand. “What’s the signal gonna be?”

“How about something cool? Like, ‘Rebellion, attack!’ or something like that?” Konyyl suggests eagerly. 

“No!” Daraya yells, throwing her hands up in the air. “Just… whatever feels right, okay? It doesn’t have to be anything complicated!”

“How about ‘My trauma is chronic, my ass is iconic’?” Lanque offers. 

The alien bursts out laughing. “Oh, yes, I am  _ so _ using that.”

“That’s not cool enough!”

“Can we  _ please _ focus?” Gorjek begs. 

“Fine, fine. How are we dealing with Zebruh’s lusus? It’s a horse… zebra… thing,” your friend explains lamely. “I dunno but he’s big and strong.”

“Lanque and I will handle the lusus, we’ve been doing that stuff since we were little. Konyyl, Azdaja, and Stelsa will all be taking on Codakk if things get messy. The alien, Polypa, Tagora, Mallek, and Tyzias will help the prisoners get to safety,” Daraya explains. 

“Of course, things are subject to change,” Stelsa adds. 

“Yep.”

“All of you need to be ready for anything. We don’t know what’s in that hive of Codakk’s, and we don’t know what tricks he’s got up his sleeve,” Tyzias says, looking each and every person in the eye. “This is unlike anything we’ve ever done before. But we’re strong, we outnumber him, and most importantly, we’ve got a teleporting alien on our side.”

“The teleporting alien is a big advantage,” Tagora agrees. 

“Yeah…” Your friend shuffles from foot to foot, looking a little uncomfortable. “And guys? I know Zebruh is a piece of shit, but let’s keep the violence to a minimum, okay? No killing unless… unless absolutely necessary. Please.”

Konyyl and Azdaja groan in annoyance, and you give them both a sharp look. They quickly shut their mouths and nod to the alien. 

Sometimes, highblood privilege just isn’t something you can bring yourself to resent. 

“Alright, folks.” Tyzias claps her hands together with an eerie smile. “Let’s go show this nooksniffer exactly what we think of him.”

Azdaja helps the alien fit the mic to the inside of their ear, and off you all go. The ten of you are a formidable force, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling a twinge of nervousness as you head down the sidewalk, breaking up into small groups to avoid suspicion from other people. A bunch of all highbloods or a bunch of all lowbloods together wouldn’t be a problem, but a group of trolls from all across the hemospectrum? That’s bound to raise a few brows. 

You manage to slide in next to the alien and Polypa. “So, how’d you two meet?”

The pair glances at each other, and your friend giggles. “Well…”

“They helped me out of a sticky situation during an assignment of mine. We ended up going on a pretend date, which kind of turned into a real date. Then we just… never stopped, I guess,” Polypa mutters, amusement making her smile and bump her moirail’s shoulder. 

“Huh. That’s actually kinda cute,” you admit. “What was the assignment?”

“Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Her tone is casual, but you know without a trace of doubt that she’s being completely serious. “Got it.”

Up ahead, Lanque turns his head ever so slightly and mouths  _ assassin. _

If you hadn’t known Lanque and his body language for several sweeps before now you wouldn’t have seen anything, but you did, and the knowledge makes you lowkey nervous. Your friend is safe with Polypa, right? You know they’re capable of bringing out the gentle side of some crazy dangerous people, but to be actually  _ dating _ a frickin’ assassin is a whole other game. 

“You can tell him how you stabbed me when you tried to kill Tagora,” Lanque calls back. 

“You can tell him how you bit my arm so hard it cracked the bone,” Polypa shoots back with a sneer. 

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

“I hope you have nerve damage in your shoulder.”

“You have nerve damage in your thinkpan--”

“Guys,” the alien huffs. Amazingly, they both shut up. 

The rest of the walk to Codakk’s hive doesn’t get any less tense, but the distance between everybody shrinks until you’re all walking together as a single group. You, Lanque, Stelsa, and Konyyl take the lead. All around you, the properties are getting bigger and fancier. Snakedad once told you that this area would have been your home had you not insisted on your apartment. You kind of want to go back in time to give your younger self a high-five for not being a pretentious motherfucker like these losers. 

“We can swing by Elwurd’s after and see if she’ll let us get drunk,” the alien suggests. 

A general murmur of agreement rises up from the rebellion, before everybody turns to look at each other in confusion. 

“... Do we all know Elwurd?” Daraya asks. 

Azdaja blinks in surprise. “I know Elwurd.”

“I know Elwurd,” Lanque agrees. 

“Same here,” Tagora says. 

“Who knows more people? The alien, or Elwurd?” you joke. 

“Don’t compare two extroverted legends,” the alien boasts. “Oh, okay. We’re almost there.”

You turn to look around Konyyl to see a sprawling hive perched on top of a hill. It’s sleek, modern, and so cringeworthy to even look at you audibly groan. 

“I bet this dude pays somebody to wipe his ass,” Azdaja snickers. 

“And jerk him off at the same time,” Konyyl adds. 

Tyzias clasps the alien’s shoulder and turns to fully face them. She looks worried but proud. “You got this. Is the mic all set?”

“Testing, testing, one two three,” Azdaja mutters into his headpiece. “You read me, alien?”

“Loud and clear, my guy,” your friend assures him. “Can you hear me?”

“Sure can.”

“Epic.”

Daraya gives a rare smile. “All right, everybody spread out in the thicket. Let’s smash the highblood supremacy!”

The rebellion does just that. You end up going along with Azdaja and Konyyl, because when shit hits the fan you want to be the first one to know and the first one inside the hive. Konyyl seems a little wary when you crouch down in the bushes with her and the goldblood, but Azdaja just smirks at you before muting his mic. 

“... What?” you ask suspiciously. 

“Is it hard, simping for the alien? I mean, it’s pretty obvious you don’t wanna be here. Think you’re gonna score some if you pretend to give a shit about lowbloods?” he jeers. 

You hiss as loudly as you dare. “My friend’s in there, asshole. You really think I wouldn’t be sticking my neck out like this if I didn’t give a shit?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Konyyl coughs into the crook of her elbow. “Ooh, burn.”

“As for the alien, you’re gonna be eating your words when I get in their red quadrant,” you say boldly. “In fact, we almost kissed before all of this went down.”

Azdaja just laughs. “You’re cute… for a cerulean. But if you knew anything about them you’d know that humans don’t  _ do _ quadrants. Sure, they’re dating the assassin chick, but that’s just ‘cause it’s platonic. There’s only one more opening for a romantic partner after that.”

Something like fear freezes you in place.  _ What?! Oh, no! _

You swallow around the dryness in your throat. “Shouldn’t you be focused on what the alien and Codakk are up to?”

“Relax. They’re just catching up at the moment.”

_ Don’t fucking lose it, Adalov. Save it for fighting. _ “Tell you what. Since you obviously think I’m not good enough for them-- which I’m probably not, I’ll be honest-- let  _ me _ take on Zebruh. Alone. Then you’ll see that I really care about lowbloods  _ and _ our friend.”

Azdaja and Konyyl look at you, then at each other, and then back to you before simultaneously grinning like purrbeasts who got into the cream. 

“He’s all yours. Good luck, true blue,” Azdaja agrees. He actually looks impressed, which sends a hot thrill into your guts. 

Konyyl nods thoughtfully. “Ten boonbucks says the punk gets pulverized.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty- _ five.” _

“... You do know this is your money, right?”

“What happened to ‘what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours-’?”

“Wait!” Azdaja stiffens, signaling for his partner to be quiet. “Shh. Something’s up.”

Both you and the oliveblood are instantly on edge. Azdaja cups his ear to hear the mic better. None of you move or speak for several moments. 

Finally, Azdaja nods. “Get ready. The alien just said something about a…  _ guests’ quarters.” _

“The prisoners,” Konyyl growls. You nod. 

“Adalov, text the others. Tell them to charge at my command.”

You want to clock him right in his nasty rat face for ordering you around, but you keep it cool and do as he says. Immediately, you receive a string of affirmations from everybody. Not for the first time, you’re amazed at how a bunch of trolls from all different castes and walks of life could come together for a common cause. Sure, some of these people made you want to jump off the roof of a tall building, but hey. What’s comradery if not lowkey wanting to punch the fuckers you hang out with every now and then? 

Azdaja surges to his feet and wheezes out a laugh.  _ “Now! _ Oh, man, they actually took Lanque’s suggestion, that’s funny--”

You shoot off the go-ahead in the group chat and take off in a dead sprint. The three of you chose a spot that was fairly close to the back of the hive, so as far as you’re aware you’re the first one to reach it. What you’re currently charging is the basement, which is good for what you’re about to do. 

A few body-lengths away, you choose one of the windows, brace yourself, and dive in horns-first.

The glass shatters with minimal resistance. You land in a roll before stumbling to your feet, ignoring the little pricks of pain in your knees from glass splinters. Thankfully the basement stairs are like, right there, so you take five at a time right on up and bust through the door--

right into the kitchen, scaring the piss out of some poor bronzeblood. 

He yelps in terror and jumps back, dropping the laundry he’s carrying to shield his face.  _ “Gah!  _ Please don’t hurt me!”

“I’m here to help,” you promise. “Where’s Codakk?”

“U-Upstairs!”

“Thanks. If you want to leave this place, now’s your chance.”

“Wait, what-?”

You’d love to stay a little while longer and help the poor kid get his stuff and go, but somebody must have triggered an alarm, because a shrill ringing hits your ears the second you hear another window shatter. 

_ Ah, shit. Here we go. _ You scramble out of the kitchen, nearly tripping over your own shoelaces. Out of the corner of your eye you see Polypa ushering a trio of rustbloods out the front door. All three of them looked like they haven’t slept or showered in nights. 

Across the huge living room is another set of stairs, this one carved from some kind of fancy stone. You fly up them, bloodpusher racing, only to realize once you reach the second floor that you have no idea where you’re going. 

_ “Ow, _ Zebruh! Let _ go _ of me, dammit!”

You run around the nearest corner, and you skid to a halt as you face a long hallway lined with numerous rooms. 

And trying to wrangle your friend into one of them is Zebruh Codakk. 

They snarl and kick at his knees, even as the indigoblood’s claws draw blood from their arms. “Don’t shove me around! I’ll teleport you into a black hole, bitch!”

“I’m trying to protect you, you tiny bastard-!” Zebruh hisses before shoving them way too hard into the doorframe. 

The alien’s head hits the wood with a  _ thunk  _ and they collapse in a heap on the floor. 

You’re not sure what happens immediately after that, but when you regain all of your senses you’re tearing into this guy like it’s your last chance to beat anybody’s ass. There’s dark blue blood on your hands. Somebody snarls like a wild barkbeast, and it isn’t until you take a big bite out of an ear and taste cold that you get that it’s you. 

Zebruh kicks you off him. He’s wide-eyed with shock, or at least he is until he focuses on you and he screeches in rage. “What the fuck!”   
  


“You’re gonna regret ever putting your disgusting hands on them,” you spit, rising to your feet. “Trolls like you make highbloods everywhere look like monsters. But I bet you’ll never even realize that for all your pretend support for lowbloods, you’ll always be a nobody.”

“They’re my friend too! And who are you to say that? You’re just some privileged cerulean!” Zebruh shoots back. 

“Oh, shut up,” you snort. 

A pained whimper rises from behind you, and you glance back to see the alien using the wall for support as they get back up. Their head looks fine, thank Gog, but they look concussed. You want to rip Codakk’s head from his shoulders. 

“Zebruh, don’t you… don’t you get it? We’re here to help the lowbloods you trapped in here,” they manage to say. 

“What? They’re not trapped! I’m helping them by giving them a place to stay!” Codakk protests. “Look, I’m sorry I shoved you too hard, I should have known you’re too weak--”

“I. Am. Not. Weak,” they snarl, taking you by surprise. Hazel eyes flash with anger. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. I’m gonna help take down this shitty society, for starters. I’m gonna make it better for everyone, even assholes like you! Because I care, Zebruh!”

“Babe, that’s treason-!”

“Don’t call me babe. There’s only one guy who gets to call me that.” They push off the wall and raise their head defiantly. 

At the end of the hallway, you see the others starting to gather to watch the showdown. Zebruh’s ears pin back-- or at least the one that isn’t completely shredded. He’s starting to look desperate. He knows he’s outnumbered, and it fills you with utter glee. 

“I’m just doing what’s best for everybody. Because of my status I can help lowbloods reach their full potential. It’s just the natural order of things,” he tells the alien. 

They laugh without humor. “The natural order of what? Slavery? Oppression? You became the exact thing you say you hate and you don’t even know it.”

“I-!”

“No. This ends tonight.”

Zebruh slinks back in terror. “What… what happened to you? You used to be so kind. We  _ had  _ something, I know we did.”

Your hear Lanque howl with laughter. “As if you’d ever be good enough for them!”

“Seriously,” Polypa snickers. Everybody else joins in, and despite the soreness of getting clawed up by an indigoblood you feel stronger than you’ve ever felt before. 

“Listen to me,” the alien orders. “I never wanted it to be like this! I tried to get you to understand, but you refuse to even hear the voices of people who you say you care so much about. Maybe you’ll get it eventually. But I’m leaving now. Polypa, is everybody out?”

“They are.”

“Good.”

They limp back towards the group. You quickly catch up to them and let them lean against you for support. 

“I thought we were friends!” Zebruh pleads. There’s actual sadness in his voice, and it’s music to your ears. “I thought…”

The alien turns and glares back at him. “You are  _ not _ my friend. You never were.”

It’s just two sentences, but they carry an infinite amount of weight coming from  _ them. _ You feel like you’ve been sucker punched even though you’re not the unlucky guy on the receiving end of those horrible words. 

Damn. 

The rebellion leaves triumphant, but that doesn’t stop you from noticing the tears trickling down the alien’s face, every bit as harsh to your bloodpusher as acid rain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Zebruh lol. That's what you get for being a piece of shit. 
> 
> Also, Mallek <3< Azdaja? Not something I expected to happen, but it just kind of happened. Konyyl ships it. I liked writing the interactions between those three because individually they're all fairly smart people but put them all together and. The brain cell leaves the group chat. As shown when Mallek decides that he's gonna impress his crush by beating up somebody higher up on the hemospectrum than him.


	16. Of Love and Shame, Undeserved

You are THE GUARDIAN and it is currently Sad Bitch Hours. 

It’s not like you were expecting Zebruh to do a complete one-eighty, see the light, and join the rebellion, but you definitely weren’t counting on him trying to lock you in one of his rooms and almost give you a concussion in the process. Granted, you could have easily just zapped out, but  _ still. _ Why wouldn’t he just listen?

Your arms hurt where his claws pierced your skin. With your luck they’d be infected by morning, if not sooner. 

“You okay, robobuddy?”

Mallek’s striking blue eyes are soft and full of concern when you look up at him, and it fills you with guilt. This guy threw hands with an indigoblood for you and he’s asking if  _ you’re _ okay?

“... Yeah. Just tired.” You lean against him, ignoring the drying salt on your face from your tears. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Nah. Just a little scratched up.”

You nod. 

“No concussion?”

“I don’t think so.”

A loud whoop pulls you from your pity party and back into the real world, and you look up to see Diemen Xicali waving at you from down the sidewalk. Leaning on him is the little kid, looking a bit shocked by everything that had just happened but thankfully much less injured than two nights ago. Zebruh must have let her use a medicalizer to heal her broken leg; her calf is still bruised up but she’s putting weight on it. By her side is some kind of oversized rodent lusus.

“Guys that was  _ crazy!” _ he shouts joyfully, hauling the poor kid with him as he makes his way over to you and Mallek. You two meet him halfway with the rest of the group close behind. 

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Mallek demands. 

“Not really. He just… wouldn’t let us leave. Said that we owed him for letting us take shelter at his hive. Also, his lusus is frickin’ terrifying,” Diemen complains. He hisses under his breath, which surprises you because you’ve never, ever heard him make a noise like that before. “If I ever see him again it’ll be too soon.”

The girl is staring at you in the way little kids like to stare at things, so you smile and do your best to appear as non-threatening as possible. You’re a mess from getting roughed up by Zebruh, but Daraya is still holding her new black eye from getting kicked by a pissed-off horse lusus, so at least you’re not alone. 

“And alien! I can’t believe you’re alive! I’d give you a hug, but…” Diemen pats the kid’s shoulder and shrugs. 

“Don’t even worry about it. I missed you too, dude,” you tell him warmly. Man, the look on his face when you two saw each other in Zebruh’s living room was  _ priceless. _ Luckily, Zebruh had been way too distracted by ranting about some new rustblood singer to notice you desperately signaling him to stay quiet, or else you would have totally blown your cover. 

The rodent lusus squeaks, looking up to the girl, who startles and then nods. “T-Thanks for saving us.

“I was glad to. We all are,” you promise. 

“As long as I never have to get kicked in the fucking face again,” Daraya mutters. 

Lanque scoffs. “At least you didn’t get bucked off and thrown clear across the hive.”

“Oh, shut up--”

_ “Anyways,” _ you say loudly, “Good job tonight, everybody.”

“Would have been better if I got to rip Codakk’s bulge off and shove it down his THROAT,” Konyyl growls. 

“Kinky,” Azdaja says. Tyzias snorts and Stelsa smacks her shoulder in disgust. 

“Guys, there’s a kid present,” you remind them patiently before turning back to Diemen. “Let’s go get oblong meat products sometime, okay?”

“You bet!” 

Mallek ends up going with him and the kid to make sure they get back to their neighborhood in one piece, and Konyyl and Azdaja split off after making you promise them you’ll be around for flavordisk dinner next wipe. Polypa does the same; apparently Tegiri texted her with an urgent request to come to his hive immediately. Knowing ‘Giri, the poor guy probably finished another sad-ass anime and needed somebody to help pick out a new series to watch. 

The teals walk you and the jades as far as the city limits before turning back to go to class. Apparently, this was one lecture they all really wanted to attend because it has something to do with the history of several legislations passed concerning the limited income provided for lowbloods, specifically up to the olive caste. 

“The more we know about systemic oppression, the more we can do to fight it,” Tyzias growls determinedly. “I’ll tell you later how many controversial questions I got to ask before I get kicked out of the class group chat.”

“That’s kind of badass,” Daraya says with a small smile. 

“You’re risking your marks, babe,” Stelsa frets. “I mean, it’s admirable, I just worry.”

“My marks will survive. All that extra credit I did is gonna save my ass, don’t worry,” Tyzias assures her. Stelsa seems pacified for the time being, but as soon as her back is turned Tyzias winks at Daraya before strolling off with her matesprit and Tagora. 

Daraya’s face flushes jade until her entire face is dark, much to your delight. 

As soon as your other friends are out of earshot Lanque is on her like fleas on a stray dog. “My, my, Daraya, are you feeling well? Your face is so green!”

“I’ll teleport us back to the caverns so Lanque can take your temperature,” you jump in, smacking the backside of your hand to her forehead as if feeling for a fever. “You’re not nauseous or anything, right? No loss of appetite?”

Daraya smacks your hand away with a snarl and stomps off to the cavern trail, making Lanque laugh so loud it echoes off the mountainside. 

You grin and chase after the younger jadeblood, coming up on her left side. “Come on, dude, tell me how it's going! Have you told her yet?”

“Shut up! No, not yet, I haven’t-- it’s gonna happen, Bombyx, don’t give me that look! We’re just… busy right now! I’m a leader!” Daraya hisses, trying and failing to squirm away from you and Lanque. 

“Exactly why you should tell her as soon as possible! Imagine how much better you two might lead together if you were moirails,” Lanque argues. 

“You two are  _ perfect  _ for each other,” you sing, grinning at her. 

“And Stelsa likes you, which is a bonus.”

“Oh, yeah, I definitely wouldn’t wanna be on Stelsa’s bad side. Look, we just want you to know that we support you no matter what--”

“And that there’s no time like the present.”

You signal Lanque to hold off for a second and pat Daraya’s arm. “We just want you to be happy. You deserve it more than anybody.”

“Except for Wanshi,” Lanque interjects. 

“I’d gladly kill somebody for Wanshi,” you agree wholeheartedly. “But are ya picking up what we’re laying down?”

Daraya looks unsure of herself, crossing her arms and hunching in on herself, just a bit. “Do you really think she likes me back?”

You look to Lanque for support, and he nods. “She most definitely does. You don’t see the way she looks at you when you have your back turned.”

Something like hope warms her dark eyes, and she walks with her head held a little higher all the way back to the caverns. 

Sneaking back in is pretty easy-- you just zap yourself and the jades to Lanque’s room, the owner of which then kicking you and Daraya out so he can take a nap. 

_ “Ugh. _ I was hoping I’d get some excuse to not come back here until tomorrow so I don’t have to I.D grubs. Shit takes  _ forever,” _ she groans as you two walk along a stone path. 

From what you remember, I.D-ing grubs involved giving them a sign, recording their weight and blood color, and setting them free in the main caverns to be chosen by a lusus. You’ve helped out a couple of times with Bronya in the past with I.D stuff. Of course she didn’t let you do any of the actual recording, because she’s a perfectionist like that and wanted to do everything herself, but she did have you hold fussy grubs to calm them down so she could work in peace. 

“I’ve done that a few times with Bronya. I’ll help you,” you offer. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, dude, let’s go.”

She seems a bit less grouchy after that, and even calls a particular plump indigoblood grub you come across a “mega-thick boy”. 

Being in the main caverns has always been a game of Russian roulette for you, as drones came and went all the time and stayed on nearly constantly after a new brood hatches. For your own safety you usually just help out in Bronya’s secret nursery, but if you’re feeling extra brave like you are tonight then you take your chances. Besides, after what happened earlier you need to snuggle some babies to get that sweet, sweet serotonin. 

You follow Daraya to a natural pocket in the cave wall, where a cluster of eggs was placed. To your delight, two are hatching and one little goldblood is already wiggling around on its back, squeaking irritably as it tries to roll over again and again, failing each time. 

“Hang in there, buddy,” you say, reaching in and flipping them over to their stomach. They stop crying and blink up at you with giant yellow eyes. You chuckle and gently scratch under their chin, which makes them give a barely-audible rickety purr. 

“Grab her for me,” Daraya says, searching through the nearby lockers before pulling out a scale, binder, and pen. 

You scoop up the goldblood and hold her still as Daraya checks her over before scribbling something down in the binder. “So how do you tell which ones are male and which ones are female? They all look the same.”

Her thick brows furrow in confusion. “Uh, their scent? Boys smell a little like rainwater, girls are kind of smokey. Also, girls are bigger.”

You sniff the goldblood. “Smells like cave to me.”

Daraya rolls her eyes, but the corner of her lips are twitching up. “So if you can’t see in the dark, or hear that well, or smell, how are you even alive?”

“If I had a caegar for every time somebody asked me that I’d be able to buy a tank to shoot a big fat hole in Her Imperious Bitchface’s left asscheek.”

“A rebel can dream. Set her on the scale.”

You set the goldblood on the scale. Daraya records her weight and releases her into the wild, or at least into the main cavern. 

“Good luck,” you call after her. 

“If luck’s on her side, she might not need it when she grows up,” Daraya says, almost to herself. 

You both fall into a routine with the next couple of grubs. There’s a rustblood, then a bronzeblood, and after a couple of minutes another egg hatches to reveal an olive. All three are recorded and set off into the unknown. Every time, you ask the universe to look favorably upon them, because there isn’t much else you can do at the moment. 

_ If anything, let them be loved.  _

“You look like you need to fart,” Daraya tells you after she releases a particularly feisty cerulean girl. “Which means you’re thinking about something.”

You pout. “Yeah, well, your eyeliner is smudged.”

“I smudge it on purpose so everybody can really see the bags underneath my eyes and know that my last fuck has long since departed to the afterlife.”

“That’s valid. If you have to know, I’m trying to telepathically communicate to the grubs that I love them and that they’ll do amazing things when they get older,” you explain. 

“... I was trying to be funny, but that’s actually really sweet.” She stares down at the squirming teal grub in her arms. “I wish I could do that.”

“Be telepathic?”

“No. Have enough love for everybody.”

You sigh, leaning back against the cold stone. Above you, bioluminescent fungi glows blue and white in the darkness. “Daraya, I think the fact that you’re leading a rebellion to make the world a better place shows that you’re more than capable of love.”

“But I’m doing it because I’m angry. I  _ hate  _ this place.”

“Why? Because it’s oppressive and unfair and traumatizing?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Exactly. When we’re strong enough to show Alternia who we are and what we stand for, don’t you think there’s gonna be millions of kids like you who realize that they deserve better? Or, if they already know, might finally have the courage to do something about it?”

Daraya sets the grub down and watches it scamper off. “You amaze me. Sometimes you do stupid shit like that one time you got really drunk with Lanque at a party and I had to stop you guys from jumping off the roof of somebody’s hive and into their pool. Sometimes you say stuff so incredibly deep and comforting it makes me think some great cosmic force sent you here to make everybody’s lives just a little bit better.”

You swallow back something hard in your throat. “To be fair, I can swim just fine.”

“Uh-huh. But Lanque can’t.”

Fuck’s sake, why can’t you just tell her? She should know what you are, what you’re capable of, the lengths you’re going,  _ will go _ to save Alternia. They all should know. 

Every single one of your friends so far have been completely overjoyed to have you back. The more time passes, however, the more you feel like you don’t deserve them anymore. You know that one day they’re going to find out. It’s only a matter of time before you accidentally let something slip or have to explain why you have so much power over the fabric of reality itself. 

You open your mouth before you can wimp out, fully intent on telling Daraya everything, but when you turn to address her she’s staring down at the tiniest rustblood you’ve ever seen. The thing is no bigger than one of your feet. They’re on the scale, but Daraya isn’t writing anything down. She doesn’t even look like she’s breathing.

“Daraya? You okay?” you ask, concerned. Crap, did you give the poor kid an existential crisis?

“... He’s too small.”

You push off the wall and stride over to her. “Huh?”

She takes a short breath. “He’s too small. He doesn’t meet the weight requirement for male rustbloods. I… I’m supposed to…”

Realization hits you like a crowbar to the face. Your stomach rolls as you look down at this tiny baby, who’s chirping indignantly at being removed from his warm nest. 

“He… but he looks completely healthy. He’s moving around and responding to stimuli and everything,” you get out. 

“A grub can be healthy and still need to be culled. The Empire doesn’t want runts. Neither do lusii,” Daraya explains tonelessly. “The only reason Karako’s alive is because Bronya raised him herself. Even then, if he makes it to adulthood it’ll be a fucking miracle.”

The thought of Karako at the end of a culling fork makes you want to throw up. “Then I’ll take him to Bronya.”

“You do realize that he still might not make it?”

“Yeah. But that’s what we’re here for, right?”

Daraya nods and hands you the grub. “Don’t come here after you’re done. The drones will be coming back for the day soon.”

“Got it.” 

You zap out of there and hope that teleportation won’t give the baby some form of developmental disability. 

As you suspected, the lights are on underneath the door to Bronya’s nursery. Glancing up and down the corridor to make sure nobody’s around to see what you’re doing, you carefully tuck the grub into the pocket of your hoodie and knock. 

Quiet footsteps approach the door from the other side. You wave at the peephole. 

The lock clicks, and Bronya opens the door with a warm smile. Everything suddenly feels a little more manageable. “What a surprise! I’ve been hoping you’d stop by.”

“Hi, Bronya,” you say, stepping in and shutting the door behind you. “Sorry I haven’t been able to come by sooner. Geez, you vanish off the face of the planet for half a sweep and suddenly you’re everybody’s favorite alien.”

“Well, you can hardly blame them, can you?” Bronya tuts. At the table across from the slime pools, she types in something to her husktop before shutting it. “Wanshi cried for ages after you were gone. She was absolutely convinced you were dead in a ditch somewhere, the poor thing.”

“Aw, Bronya, don’t make me feel even  _ more _ guilty.”

She grins at you. “Just teasing. I’m almost finished wrapping everything up for the day, but you’re more than welcome to hold the grubs if you want.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that. Unfortunately, I think I’m about to add even more to your workload.” With a sigh, you bring out the tiny rustblood and present him to her. 

Bronya’s eyes widen, and in a flash she’s right in front of you, nearly making you crap your pants. You’d forgotten how fast trolls can move when they really want to. “He didn’t meet the weight requirement, I assume?”

“No. Other than that he seems perfectly healthy, he’s just…” You chuckle nervously. “He’s really frickin’ tiny.”

You hand him over to her before she can get too itchy about not holding him. She cuddles him to her chest with the softest expression you’ve ever seen. It makes you wonder about how some trolls thrive on nothing but violence but others live to take care of others. On Alternia, is it nature or nurture that makes a person? 

“He’s beautiful.” She looks up at you with shining dark green eyes. “Thank you for saving him. I can’t name many others even in the caverns who would have done the same.”

“Daraya’s the one who found him, so… can’t take all of the credit.” Wow, is it hot in here or is it just you? 

“Well, I’m glad she made a good choice, even if by our society’s standards it wasn’t the right one,” Bronya tells you as she sets the grub down in one of the slime pools. The other inhabitants, three other rusts, a goldblood, and two bronzes roll over and accept him into their cuddle pile without hesitation. 

“Yeah. Sometimes the good choice and the right choice just aren’t the same thing,” you mumble, watching an indigoblood in the adjacent pool kick their little legs in their sleep. 

Bronya nods. She looks tired as she sits down heavily at the table, and you want to tell her to go get some rest, but you can tell there’s something on her mind. 

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” you ask. 

She hesitates, looking almost ashamed before drawing herself upright and exhaling quietly. “... Actually, yes. I’m afraid you’re the only person I can trust enough to do this.”

You sit down across from her, looking her in the eyes to make sure she knows you’re being serious for once. “You can talk to me, Bronya. And I promise I’m not making pale advances or anything, because I’m already one-hundred percent taken.”

That gets a smile out of her. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I missed having a listening ear like yours.”

“My hearing might be terrible by troll standards, but I’ll try my absolute best.”

“... It started not long after you… disappeared. Daraya began acting… strangely,” Bronya begins. “She’s always been a bit of a lone wolf, but this was something different. She’d vanish for half a night, and then eventually she wouldn’t be back until the sun was coming up. She fell behind in her duties. Of course I did my best to be understanding, she looked up to you more than anybody-- she still does, even if she’ll never say it. We all missed you terribly.”

You nod. You’ve got an awful suspicion as to where this is going, but you don’t want to entertain the thought that Bronya would ask you to do… what you think she’s going to ask you to do. 

“She got a little better with time, but that didn’t change her little vanishing act. I tried to get her to talk to me, which went as well as one thought it would. Then I tried to stop her from leaving. That went even worse.”

“Daraya’s got a hell of a temper,” you say. 

“That she does. Then, a couple of perigees in, Lanque started doing the same thing. Leaving at odd hours, coming back smelling of strange places. Thankfully they finally got their act together concerning their responsibilities around here, which I thought would be a turning point for them, but… they just wouldn’t stop!” Bronya hisses, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Clouds are white, the grass is purple, and jadebloods aren’t allowed to leave the caverns. Three simple facts of life, and yet those two insist on ignoring the latter!”

“Were they happier?” you ask.

Bronya blinks, confused. “What?”

“I get that ignoring their responsibilities must have been a massive pain in the rear, but what about after they figured it out? Did their mental health benefit from going to the surface?”

She looks down at you like you just asked her why the Alternian sun is hot. “From an outsider’s perspective it must seem harsh, I know. But a jadeblood’s purpose isn’t to be happy. It’s to ensure the continuation of our species.”

“So… do you want me to try and get them to stop? Because I’m gonna tell you right now that’s not gonna work. Both Daraya and Lanque are very strong and I am very small,” you tell her. 

“Of course not. The thing is, they both trust you very much, possibly more than their fellow jadebloods. Which is why I want you to keep going with them when they sneak out, and then I want you to tell me what they’ve been up to this whole time.”

For the second time tonight you’re struck speechless. 

“I know it’s a terrible favor to have to request of you. But I’m afraid I have no other choice. Lanque and Daraya’s loyalty and priorities have become completely skewed over the perigees and as head jade, it’s my duty to steer them back on course,” Bronya declares. 

“... Right.”

A nobler version of you would stand up and angrily, but politely tell Bronya that there was no way that you’d ever betray your friends’ privacy like that. You would tell her that you value her as a friend and thank her for letting you stay and work here whenever you felt like. That the caverns were like home to you. Then, you would explain that as much as you’ve come to respect her, you simply cannot do this for her. 

What you do instead is to swallow back your sadness and say, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Bronya looks so happy and relieved you nearly make a break for it in utter shame. “Oh,  _ thank you. _ Thank you so much. I knew that you’d always be brave enough to do the right thing.”

_ But the right thing isn’t always a good thing! _ you want to cry. 

She sees you out after that, a comforting hand on the small of your back. She tells you to rest well and that everything is going to be okay. 

The second she closes her respiteblock door you start to cry as quietly as possible. You walk down the corridor, and when you’re sure she’s out of earshot you take off running. Everybody else is already back in their rooms, which you’re grateful for so nobody can see your pathetic ass having an anxiety attack while sprinting like fucking Usain Bolt. 

You want to go curl up in Lynera’s study and cry yourself to sleep, but you’re already keeping one too many secrets from the people you care about so much. You’re not going to be a coward about this, even if it means starting the shitshow to end all shitshows, even if it means losing one of your oldest friends. 

You take a moment to catch your breath in a supply closet, and then you go find Lanque. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys the jades were gonna have drama. And believe me, this is only the beginning of the biggest showdown the Thrashthrust caverns have ever seen, nearly a decade in the making. 
> 
> Unfortunately for the Guardian, they're going to have to learn that they won't be able to keep all of their friends. When it comes down to it, their allegiance is to the rebellion and to their friends who are actively fighting to make Alternia a better place. 
> 
> And no, my intention isn't to make Bronya a villain. She's a stressed out leader with her heart in the right place who desperately wants to protect those she cares about. In that sense, she and the Guardian are exactly alike.


	17. Of Riots and Rebels

All in all, Lanque’s a whole lot calmer about the whole thing than you thought he’d be, which makes you feel better about going to him right away instead of Daraya. Of course you love Daraya, but knowing the kid she’d probably run off to start a fight with Bronya, Lynera, and any other poor bastard who gets in her way.

“I want to believe Bronya’s doing this because she thinks she’s in the right, but I just can’t…  _ augh! _ I just… can’t believe she’d ask me to do something like that.” You conclude your messy rant by flopping down on the carpet. There’s a dull ache in your skull from either exhaustion or anxiety, possibly both. 

Lanque’s looking down at you from the loveseat in the corner like the universe’s most judgemental therapist, sprawled across the whole thing with his gangly self. “You haven’t known her nearly as long as I have. You heard me say once that she’s the craziest bitch in the whole cloister. I meant it.”

You want to argue with him; Bronya isn’t crazy, just a control freak, but that’s gonna have to be a discussion for another time. “You’re not surprised at all by this? Not even a little?”

“Not surprised. Just… disappointed.”

“What, does she make you to sleep at certain times and check your palmhusk, too?” you joke. 

“Not anymore, she doesn’t. She learned her lesson after I filled my whole camera roll with the spiciest nudes you can imagine.”

You try not to imagine anything of the sort and fail miserably. Your last brain cell hangs on for dear life. “So, uh… w-what should I tell her the next time we go out?”

“Tell her that I’ve been taking Daraya to a slam poetry club. We’ve actually done poetry in the past, so it’s not like you’ll be lying,” he says with a smirk. “You should come sometime. Talk to people about all sorts of controversial alien opinions. Maybe throw in some rhymes while you’re at it.”

“Alright,” you agree.

“... Darling?”

“Yes, babe?”

“Don’t breathe a word of this to Daraya. She’s stressed out enough as it is.”

“Of course not.”

“Good.”

::: 

The next night you spend with Polypa, vandalizing stuff with the Heiress’s face on it and even setting a billboard on fire. It’s a lot of fun, but between vandalizations you can’t stop yourself from thinking about the girl herself. From what you can tell she’d be around seventeen in human years, which meant she’d soon have to challenge the Empress, as all the Heiresses before her did.

Some teenagers like to play video games, some like to sing or dance or do sports; you even know a few who live all by themselves on an island in the middle of the ocean who can shoot guns better than most military personnel. But not Trizza Tethis. No, she’ll be off to duel for the throne… and her life. 

In your hearts of hearts you know that Tethis is a monster. There’s no doubt about it. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still just a kid, a kid who is going to be murdered soon for the crime of reaching adulthood. 

It makes your heart hurt just thinking about that, and all of the other girls that came before her, and if this rebellion goes to shit all the girls who will come after her.

“Hey, Polypa?” you ask. 

“Yeah?” She’s hanging upside-down on some broken piping while spraying  _ THE REVOLUTION IS HERE  _ on the side of a post office. You’re being a good moirail and keeping watch for anybody who might see her, even though it’s dark out and you can’t see much past the street lights lining the sidewalk. For some reason she refuses to tell you, she’s been in a mood ever since she came back from Tegiri’s, but you’re patient. You can wait for her. 

“Do you ever wonder if Trizza might have been a good person if Alternia wasn’t the way it is?”

Polypa stops what she’s doing and stares down at you. “Honestly? I don’t really care how she might have turned out if things were different. All the things I’ve seen her do, the shit I’ve heard her say on social media… I just can’t bring myself to believe anything other than she’s one of the most horrible Heiresses Alternia’s ever had and that she deserves to die. Slowly and painfully, that is. And then she deserves to be forgotten.”

“That’s fair,” you tell her. “I dunno, I just kept thinking about how she’s supposed to go off and duel the Empress soon, and that she’s definitely not gonna win, because none of the fuschias who went up against her ever did.”

“... Does that make you sad?”

“It makes me sad that a kid is going to die, yes.”

She huffs. “Save your sympathy. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Can trolls control who they sympathize with?”

“Of course we can. Can’t humans?”

You laugh. “No. Or at least I can’t. Empathy’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa chucks her spray-paint can into the nearby dumpster. “Empathy? Isn’t that like, feeling what other people are feeling? I thought that was just a myth.”

“Some humans can feel the emotions of others. I’ve always been able to.”

“That sucks.”

“Again, it’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa shudders, flips upright, and then drops down to the concrete. “If you say so. C’mon, let’s scram.”

You scram, or at least you try to before somebody bumps into you hard enough to nearly knock you over. 

“Watch it!” Polypa hisses from somewhere behind you. 

You look up at a boft looking (buff plus soft) rustblood guy, who flinches back when he accidentally looks you in the eye. “Sorry! Sorry. Bye.”

He shuffles off down the street, shoulders hunched in like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible even though he’s easily the biggest rust you’ve ever seen. Huh. 

“Well, that was weird,” you say, and then you feel something crinkle in the hood of your jacket. Cautiously, you reach up and grab it, hoping that he didn’t just put a bomb on you or something. You aren’t that worried about dying, because you know your immortal ass is coming right on back, but if Polypa’s in the blast zone--

“It’s a piece of paper,” she says. 

“Oh, yay. I thought it might be a bomb.”

“Definitely not a bomb.”

The paper’s been folded several times, so you smooth it out and read the letters that have been cut out and glued out in a note, like some kind of  _ Nancy Drew _ shit. 

“What the…” You read the message, and then you read it again, once, twice, thrice, four times before Polypa starts swatting at you and grabbing for the paper. You hand it over and stare out across the street. 

_ You are not alone. Tomorrow at midnight.  _

“I’m texting the others,” Polypa mutters, shoving the paper into her pocket and whipping out her palmhusk. 

“There’s more of us,” you whisper. “That’s what it means, right? We’re not the only faction out there fighting for-!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, let’s not believe anything that some stranger wrote down on a piece of paper and shoved into your hoodie--”

“But he came to  _ me, _ Polypa--”

“Hey!” 

Both of you turn around to see some cerulean girl you don’t know storming across the street to you. “The fuck you think you gutterbloods are doing, huh?”

“The revolution is here, bitch,” you tell her, and you grab Polypa’s sleeve and zap away. 

Polypa does not hesitate to smack you upside the head the second you two appear on the roof of some building downtown. “The hell was that? She just saw an alien and an oliveblood teleport out of an alley with fresh graffiti on the post office!”

“Who’s gonna believe her?” you snort. 

“She’s a cerulean, she’ll make  _ somebody _ believe her.”

“Dude. Chill. We still have time before things get crazy.”

“Apparently not! Tomorrow at midnight--”

“I know! Isn’t it  _ great? _ What if it’s like, a big post on Chittr, or a public service announcement from God knows where saying that it’s time for bigots to start shitting their pants, because the revolution is here and it is sexy!”

_ “Augh!” _ Polypa throws up her hands. You start to get a little concerned. “Aren’t you scared? Like, at all? We could all die tomorrow and you’re just… totally fine! You disappear for half a sweep and come back ready to lead a revolution!”

Alright, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Slowly, so she has time to pull away if she wants, you step forward and reach up to caress her cheek. 

The effect is instantaneous. She visibly loosens up from horns to toes, leaning forward into the contact with a low chirrup rising up from deep in her throat. If you were a troll, that sound would have probably made you pale-horny to the  _ max, _ but you’re human so all you do is just stand up on your tippy-toes to press your foreheads together. You imagine pulling away all of her fear and stress and releasing it into the open sky, never to be seen again. 

“We’re not going to die,” you tell her. “We’re just not. And if we were, I’d tell you, because dying isn’t that bad. Doesn’t even hurt, really.”

“... You’ve been dead before?”

“Yeah. Feels like the best fucking nap you’ve ever taken.”

She snorts hard enough for you to feel her breath across your face. “Only you would say something like that and be completely unbothered.”

“That’s just how it be sometimes,” you say, because joking about your trauma and having anxiety are basically your only two personality traits nowadays. 

“I’ll write that down for the pile,” she says, because she’s always been able to see right through you, even when you can’t see yourself. “Which we’re going back to an abandoned apartment building to do once I yeet this glass bottle into that window over there.”

She picks up the broken glass bottle at your feet and proceeds to do just that. It sails through the air with all the majesty of an eagle and crashes through somebody’s office window. You know enough about troll romance by now to be a little scandalized by how forward she’s being, but you both know it’s out of necessity. Troll language is far from just verbal-- it’s flattened ears or bared fangs or dilated pupils. It’s hissing and chirping and growling and all sorts of sounds you don’t even know the names for, and you can’t even hear most of them because they’re either too low or too high a pitch for your human ears to catch. 

“Hot  _ damn,  _ wildcat. You gonna take me out to dinner before you throw me down on somebody’s abandoned loungeplank?” you tease. Her face lights up in green, and you grin in satisfaction as she splutters something about saving it for the respiteblock. 

You’re about to cook up something truly slutty to say when her palmhusk vibrates. Polypa reads it and snorts. “Aaaannnddd Daraya is losing her mind, Tagora says it’s a trap, Tyzias wants to know what the rustblood looked like, Stelsa is in agreement with Tagora, Lanque is asking how the hell it could be a trap when the rustblood didn’t even ask you to meet him anywhere, and Mallek is telling everybody to shut up so he can take a nap. Konyyl and Azdaja haven’t responded yet. I bet they’re making out in a back alley somewhere. Oh, Tagora is telling Lanque to shut his Troll Twilight-looking ass up before he fines him for wasting the rebellion’s time… and Tyzias just sent a bunch of hysterical laughing emojis.”

“I love my friends,” you say. 

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I’m gonna get Mallek to hack the server so whenever people start arguing over stupid stuff a bot starts spamming the chat with gifs of fighting purrbeasts.”

“Do group chats have servers?”

“I have no idea. Come on, I’m fucking freezing up here.”

:::

Your memories of growing up on Earth are fuzzy at best. You have no idea if it’s from Scratch, or Ultimate Dirk, or hell, maybe it’s just regular old brain damage, but one of the few things you can vividly remember is when your grandma died. 

You can’t remember her name, but you can easily recall her eternally-smiling face, that smile that always reached her eyes-- hazel, like yours. She’s the one who taught you how to braid your hair, wing your eyeliner, ask out a crush. She also taught you how to take down a grown man with nothing but your fists and a pocketknife. Old age hadn’t ever been a problem for your grandma. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. 

The morning your uncle found in her lifeless in bed hadn’t felt any different than all of the mornings before. You just woke up and started to get ready for school, and then your mom… yeah, it was your mom who picked up the phone. She didn’t cry, but your uncle did. 

It was a heart attack. 

Your mom told you that you didn’t have to go to school, but you were still pretty young, and it still felt like every other morning before so you went to school. 

You’re not sure why you’re remembering this when you first smell the smoke, or see the burning buildings from the roof of the abandoned apartment building you and Polypa crashed in. Maybe it’s because it still feels like every other night before this one. 

Something deep in you that’s been irreversibly interwoven with time and space begins to tingle. This is a turning point in history, you just know it. 

Polypa’s shaking her head like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “It’s a riot. A  _ riot. _ In Thrashthrust. We really aren’t…”

“Alone,” you finish with a smile so big it hurts your face. 

“... Do you think this is really the right thing to do?”

“A wise man from my planet once said that riots are the language of the unheard.” You turn to her and take her hands in your own. “So let’s make them hear us.”

You’re not sure what you were expecting when you drop yourself and Polypa into downtown Thrashthrust, but you definitely weren’t expecting to almost get run over by Konyyl and Azdaja, both panting, sweaty, and smelling faintly of smoke. 

Konyyl yelps and jumps about a foot in the air. “WHAT the-- oh, hi, guys. You didn’t scare me, I just… yeah.”

“Dude, what is all this? This is incredible!” you crow. 

An explosion rocks the ground, followed by a giant plume of fire that shoots up into the sky just one street over. Azdaja whoops in delight, and Konyyl cheers even louder as a piece of flaming metal you think used to be a scuttlebuggy sails through the air and takes out a convenience store. Normally, something like that would have worried you, but seeing as the store’s already nearly burnt to the ground you think everybody’s already gotten out. 

Not to be outdone, Azdaja telekinetically grabs on to a fallen lamppost and hurls that bad boy through the grocery store across the street. 

“Show-off,” Konyyl scoffs. 

“Where’s the main protest?” you ask. 

“Like, a couple of blocks back that way. Some bronzeblood is leading the charge. Absolute mad lad,” she says, grinning. “I think a few more people you know might be there.”

That’s all the convincing you need to grab Polypa’s hand and take off running. You can hear the roar of a crowd chanting something.

“What are they saying?” you ask Polypa. 

_ “Be silent no longer, when we’re together, we’re stronger,” _ she replied, glancing back at you with a twinkle in her eye. “I kinda like it.”

“Me too!”

The both of you turn the corner at the end of Hookedclaw street and find yourself face-to-face with a sizable crowd of about one hundred trolls. They’re all looking up to a pair of trolls standing on an upturned scuttlebuggy-- a bronzeblood, like Konyyl said, and the same big rustblood guy who you ran into last night. 

You gape in shock. “Holy shit!”

The bronzeblood boy is yelling something, so you press closer into the crowd to hear what he’s saying. Most of the trolls here seem to be lowbloods, so when they see you and Polypa, an oliveblood, they gladly make room for you to join. 

“... for what? A social construction that keeps us divided, because those who sit on thrones marked with the blood of our people  _ know _ how strong we are together! They know that we’d be able to take control of our own destinies, and that  _ terrifies _ them!” He pauses to take a short breath. “For fuck’s sake, I just want a world where I can walk down the street without worrying about getting killed! Is the bar really that damn low? Think about that,  _ all of you!” _

Another wave of cheering echoes through the streets, and you join in without hesitation. 

“This guy’s spitting straight facts,” Polypa admits, looking impressed. 

“He’s got balls, all right,” you agree. “That rustblood guy look familiar to you?”

She ribs you. “Yeah, yeah, you were right. I admit it.”

You turn your attention back to the boys, but they’re looking over the heads of the protestors at something behind you. A soft wave of hisses rise into the air as you turn to see a trio of purples stalking towards everybody, clubs dragging behind them with the awful scrape of steel against concrete. They’re twice the size of Polypa, except the giant fucker in the middle, who you think might be just a little bit shorter than Chahut. 

“That’s a pretty sermon there, bronze brother,” he calls with a voice that crackles like burning wood. “Pretty for a load of treasonous fuckin’ shit.”

“Can’t be shittier than whatever they’re cooking up in that drug-hole church of yours,” the bronzeblood fires back with a smirk. 

Even the rustblood standing next to him sucks in a sharp breath as the clown regards him with no trace of emotion. Polypa grabs your hand, and you squeeze it tight. 

“You’ve got a big-ass mouth for a critter the size of my motherfuckin’ left toe,” the clown on the big guy’s right says. 

“And you’ve got a big-ass forehead for a bastard with such a tiny skull.”

Somebody lets out a loud snort. It might have been you. 

The feeble tendrils of bravery holding everybody together begin to unravel as the purplebloods begin to approach once more. You instinctively back up and pull your jacket hood over your head. 

“Get ready,” Polypa growls. 

But before the clowns have the chance to attack or use their chucklevoodoos, or before the lowbloods gather their courage enough to storm the intruders, a deafening  _ CRACK _ splits the air like a thunderclap. 

The clown to the far left drops like a rock, and standing over him, bat raised, is Elwurd. 

She’s wearing a mask to conceal her face, of course, but you’d recognize that crest of blue hair anywhere. Beside her is Remele with her oversized mallet-club thing, and bringing up the rear with shining dual blades is none other than Ardata Carmia. 

“Am I fucking dreaming,” you ask nobody in particular, and then all hell breaks loose. 

The cerulean girls lunge for the two purplebloods that are still on their feet. The bronzeblood screams for everybody to scatter just as drones begin to swoop down from the sky, opening fire on the trolls below. Half a dozen kids drop dead on the spot.

You and Polypa duck into the nearest alleyway just in time before bullet holes pepper the pavement. Behind you, Elwurd roars something that sounds like “Duck!” before another explosion blows out all the windows. You yelp and cover your head as glass showers down on you like rainfall.

“Zap us out of here!” Polypa yells. 

“No, wait! We have to go help the girls!”

“I’m not going back out there and neither are you!”

You glance back just in time to see Ardata drop to her knees, holding her bloody arm. She’s shrieking in terror as a drone advances on her, culling fork glinting bone-white in the darkness. Remele and Elwurd are too busy getting their asses kicked by the last living clown to help.

In that moment you can’t remember her as the bloodthirsty murderer who tortured you in her basement. All you can think of is the time she broke down in your arms, overcome with guilt at the monster she’d become in the name of being accepted by highblood society. A monster who’d traumatized you, and then became your friend. 

You’re moving through space and time before your brain can catch up to what you’re doing. Ardata is cold and hard when you tackle her out of the way of the drone. The two of you tumble across the street together as the culling fork hits the spot where Ardata just was with a  _ SHUNK.  _ Even with adrenaline racing through your system the sound chills you to the core. 

Remembering what Dirk taught you about hand-to-hand combat with a larger opponent, you grab one of her knives and zap right over to the clown, getting right up in his business before burying the blade into an eye socket. 

Unsurprisingly, he drops a squirming Remele and covers his face with a scream so horrible you almost pee your pants. Ardata’s wailing your name from the sidewalk like a terrified child. You want to yell at her to shut up and run before the drones spotted her again, but you never get the chance. One moment you’re twisting a knife into a purpleblood’s skull, the next you’re flying through the air like a ragdoll before a pair of strong arms wrap around you. You and your rescuer land hard on the street with matching grunts of pain. 

You look up into Elwurd’s bewildered face and burst out laughing. “Hi!” 

“What the--”

“Time to go!” Remele yanks the both of you up by your scruffs like a pair of naughty cats. “Ardata, stop screaming like a wiggler and get your arse over here now!”

“My arm!” Ardata screeches. “I’ll be scarred for  _ life!” _

“No, you won’t, idiot, not when you hit your adult molt-!”

You zap the three of them out of there and into the alley, grab Polypa on your way, and then get the hell out of dodge. 

The five of you end up in the back of a Troll Dennys, because of course you do. Polypa falls on you, knocking you to the ground, and then she yowls in anger when Elwurd lands on her legs, only for Ardata and Remele to hit the concrete ass-first. Remele accidentally kicks you in the stomach. Ardata falls back against a dumpster and hits her head on the metal with a BANG. 

Everybody stares at each other for a long moment with varying degrees and expressions of utter shock. Polypa glares at you, and you just know you’re in for a long discussion about putting your own safety first in dangerous situations, or something like that. 

You decide to break the ice first. “Anybody want pancakes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The friendship between Ardata, Elwurd, and Remele is what happens when a murderer, a thief, and a drug dealer all come together to do impromptu group therapy after their mutual friend goes missing, and then eventually join a rebellion to overthrow the government, because why not?


	18. Of Remembrance

Pancakes turn out to be a great idea, because you haven’t had breakfast yet and you get more time to think about what you’re going to say when you’re chewing on a mouthful of delicious sweetened bread, berries, and syrup. 

“I can’t believe you’re  _ alive,”  _ Ardata says for the umpeenth time. You had let her rant for the past ten minutes about how sad she’d been after you disappeared, about her GrubTube career going down the drain after she’d been hacked, and then eventually making friends with Elwurd and Remele because, in her words, “They were the only trolls interesting enough to make me want to go out and Do Things.”

Elwurd snorts. “Only after countless wipes of bitching and moaning, but okay.”

“I had to unlearn  _ everything _ I was raised to believe-!”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” She looks back to you and grins. “We’re just happy you’re okay. Where the hell did you even go, dude?”

“Well… I was kidnapped, there were some interesting shenanigans involving space and time, made some new friends, yelled at a couple of assholes, and then I found my way back here,” you summarize. If you had a nickel for every time you’ve explained what happened to you, you’d have enough money to buy an actual hive to live in. 

“Good gog,” Remele mutters, sipping on her coffee. “That sounds… rather stressful.”

“It was, believe me.”

Next to you, Polypa clears her throat, not meeting the eyes of the ceruleans. You don’t blame her; she’s a lowblood and all three of the other girls are intimidating, especially Elwurd. “So, you three are part of that… group?”

Ardata purses her lips, but it’s Remele who answers. “It’s… a wee bit complicated. We know Dammek and Xefros, of course, but we’re more focused on taking out direct threats to the rebellion instead of social justice.”

“We’re a highblood ally group, basically,” Elwurd clarifies. 

You blink. “Dammek and Xefros?”

“The bronze and the rust up on that overturned scuttlebuggy. They’re in charge of the whole thing. They’re pretty cool.”

Remele nods. “Xefros is the one who found the other rebellion faction and located you.”

“Dude must have had a hell of a night finding an alien,” Polypa mutters, amused. 

The ceruleans fall strangely silent. Elwurd sucks her teeth and looks over at Remele, who looks at Ardata, who makes a face at her and stares down at her waffles. You instantly know that something big happened, something that they’re hesitant to tell you. 

“So, about that,” Elwurd says. 

“What?” 

Remele hums nervously, tapping a claw against the plastic of the table you’re all sitting around. 

“What?” you demand. 

“Look. This is going to sound a little insane, but…” 

“A human child came to Alternia while you were away,” Elwurd finished. 

_ “... WHAT?!” _

<>

Your name is ELWURD, and you are running away from a pissed-off indigo chick who just wanted to enjoy her pancakes. This is disappointing, because she’s pretty hot and you haven’t had a date in like, two perigees, but maybe you’ll catch her later at the party you’ll be throwing next wipe and apologise. 

“Why don’t we just fight her? There’s five of us against one!” Remele complains as she vaults over a fence with you hard on her heels. 

“I’m not fighting that bitch, she’s huge!” Ardata yells from up ahead. 

“Second that!” the alien calls from somewhere behind you. They’re surprisingly speedy for a little guy, but they do have great legs. Not that you’ve been looking. 

Polypa speeds past you in a black-and-olive blur and flings herself up the wall of the abandoned drill factory you’re all heading towards. “Rule number one of fighting indigos: try not to.”

Ardata zooms up after her, yelping as the tip of her boot gets caught on a stray shingle as she vaults herself up onto the roof. She’s come a long way from being some spoiled GrubTube celebrity, you’ll give her that, but her parkour skills still need a lot of work. 

You and Remele bring up the rear, and before you can turn around to help the alien up a little zapping sound like a plasma ball being bounced around sounds from just behind you. You turn in surprise to see the alien standing on the roof with you guys, hands on their knees and out of breath. They give you a thumbs-up. 

“Did you just…” you begin, unsure if the stuff you snorted off your own kneecap last morning wore off completely, but from the looks Remele and Ardata are giving your mutual friend you think you aren’t high anymore. 

Polypa sighs. “Yes, my moirail can teleport. No, I really don’t know why.”

“HEY!”

You lean over to peer down at the indigo chick. “Yo!”

“You load of bitches better learn to treat your superiors with  _ respect!  _ You’re lucky I don’t feel like climbing this shitpile!” she spits. 

“Right, totally because you’re not out of breath,” you call back. “Man, you indigos are all the same. All muscle, no stamina.”

“Or pancells,” Ardata sneers. 

“Or decency,” Remele finishes. 

She snarls loud enough for it to echo off the walls before storming off back the way she came. Polypa gives her the finger, smirking proudly as she watches the indigo stomp off into the night. You can see why the alien chose her to be their moirail. 

“So.”

You turn back to see the alien tapping their foot impatiently. “The tea. Please.”

“Well… weird portal thingie brought over this girl from Earth named Joey. Weird portal thingie also sent over Dammek to Earth. Shenanigans ensued. Drama happened. I fistfought a violetblood in the parking lot at GrubMart. Somehow, we managed to get everybody back where they belong, and nobody even died. Yay.”

You hope Joey and Jude are doing alright-- they were great kids, even if being around them was a little painful. Both of them reminded you so much of your long-lost friend. Maybe it was a human thing to be overly nice, super goofy, and a total crackhead all at the same time. 

The alien’s hazel eyes are focused on something past you. Their lips are moving but no sound is coming out. They begin to shake. 

Polypa calls their name, darting forward to grab her moirail’s shoulders. They look like they don’t even see her. 

“Hey, are they…” You don’t finish your sentence, because hello, your friend is obviously having a panic attack. 

“It’s him. It’s  _ him. _ It’s gotta be, Polypa, he’s  _ still…” _ they gasp, the rest of the color draining from their already pale face. “He’s still here, he’s gonna  _ come for me--” _

“No no, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she whispers frantically, trying to shooshpap them even though they’re human and that sort of thing doesn’t work on humans. “Listen-no, look at me. You’re safe. You’re safe--”

Ardata jumps back as their eyes flash bright green, like neon searchlights in the dark. They don’t look like themselves anymore. 

_ They look like-- _

“What’s happening?” Remele asks worriedly. You wave her away, following the little voice in your head that’s urging you to stay back. 

Something feels terribly wrong. 

<>

You are THE GUARDIAN. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. 

And the universe is splitting apart. 

Of course it’s not in the sense that corporeal beings like yourself would be able to see, but because you’re a god you can feel it. You can feel it in every atom. It’s in every proton and neutron in your physical form, wiring into you, deeper and deeper until you can’t feel anything but the shriek of reality being torn apart like a wet napkin. The pain hits you soon after. 

Your legs give out and you fall. 

You grab for the tear, try and smooth it back together, stop the bleeding. You’re bleeding. Why won’t it  _ stop-- _

Somewhere far away, you can hear Polypa calling for you, but no matter how hard you try you can’t answer her. Come back. Please come back. 

Please

I 

can’t 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The last shreds of your vision that aren’t dominated by black spots vanish at last, and you gratefully fall into the darkness. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


You’re not sure when, but eventually there is a light shining from deep within the void. You twist around to stare at it mid-fall. 

  
  
  
  


You blink, stunned, and then you’re standing in a school cafeteria. Sunlight streams in through the big glass windows--  _ Earth _ sunlight. It warms you from the outside in, like you’re being thawed emotionally as well as physically. The lunch tables are all folded neatly against the opposite wall. In the air is the familiar smell of linoleum and french fries; it must have been burger day. God, you miss burger day. 

There’s no soreness from tumbling across the pavement earlier when you knocked Ardata out of the way of that drone. No scabs are visible on your knuckles. Every breath you take is like inhaling pure oxygen, even with nothing around to produce it. For the first time in what feels like years, you are in absolutely no pain whatsoever. 

Soft footsteps behind you alert you to the presence of another. You turn, bracing yourself for anything, for  _ him, _ but…

“I knew you could do it.” 

She grins at you with eyes that sparkle like stars, pride radiating from every fiber of her being. Her dress is free from dirt and looks as new as the day it was made. The sunlight catches in her jet black hair and makes the white of her dress glow gold. 

_ “Boldir,” _ you choke, a hard lump forming in your throat even as you run for her and throw yourself into her strong arms. 

Boldir catches you without hesitation and holds you tightly, gently rocking you back and forth. You’re crying but you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed and it’s amazing. 

You laugh wetly, wiping at your eyes. “How-- what? How are you here?  _ Why _ are you here? What even is this place?”

“Good questions!” She looks very proud of herself. “Reaching you took a lot of work, but I found out that the easiest way was to create a space where you could astral project into. A place buried so deeply into your subconscious even  _ he _ couldn’t make you forget about it.”

You look around, knowing who Boldier is talking about but still baffled as to why you’re in a school cafeteria. “This… this is a school.”

“Yep! Does anything look familiar?”

It hits you like a punch to the gut the second she says it. With a gasp, you whirl around, taking everything in as a memory resurfaces from the sea of the life you once led. 

About ten feet away, a fuzzy image forms out of thin air. A bunch of teenagers are sitting around one of the lunch tables, yelling and laughing, doing homework, eating, showing each other stuff on their phones. They become more solid the longer you look at them, like you’re trying to focus on them through a microscope. 

Sitting between a dude with a varsity jacket and a pretty brunette girl is a small blonde kid, easily the shortest person at the table, their hair down past their shoulders. They’re reading something off the brunette’s phone and almost spit out their chocolate milk when they start giggling.

It was the last day of your sophomore year, you remember. You were going to hang out with your friends after school. You can’t recall exactly what you guys did, but it’s so far away in your memory you can’t even begin to think about what it might have been. The little blonde kid looks so  _ happy, _ their only worry being what colleges they should apply for next fall. 

You don’t even know you’re crying until Boldier wipes the tears from your face with a soft, sympathetic noise. 

“This is my high school. Those were my friends. I… I grew up here, Boldir,” you whisper. 

“And that’s why this universe split apart from the others, Guardian. You’re finally remembering who you are and where you came from! What else can you recall?” she demands, cupping your face between her strong hands. 

“I… the other night I remembered my grandma, and my uncle, because she died of a heart attack and… and oh my God. Oh, fuck.  _ I remembered my mom,” _ you sob. 

“Good! Yes! What does she look like?”

Your head is beginning to pound. Are you dehydrated or something? “She’s… taller than me. She loved me, right?”

Boldier giggles. “Everybody’s taller than you.”

“But she loved me?”

“She did. She does.”

The sunlight coming in through the window seems to be getting brighter and brighter. “Boldir, what’s happening? Where are you?”

“I can’t come to you right now. I have to keep him away from you as long as I can,” she explains swiftly. “He’s losing patience.”

“Scratch?” 

Ice water shoots up your spine when she nods, a low growl building up in her chest. “Listen to me. You  _ have _ to remember who you are! That’s how you can break free of Scratch’s control. When he finds you, you can’t listen to anything he tells you.  _ You _ are the First Guardian.  _ You _ control your own destiny. I know you can save Alternia, Micah!”

A loud splintering sound makes you whip around to see the linoleum crack open, revealing shards of light that pierce the air like knives. The sunlight is nearly blinding you now. Your headache goes from mildly painful to a full-blown migraine in the course of a couple seconds. Boldir hisses in fury and throws you behind her as the ground where you just stood gives way into white nothingness, the color of bone after it’s been out in the Alternian sun for a day. The low, dull roar of the heart of a star follows after, so loud to your aching head that you almost collapse on the spot.

“But where are you?” you cry again. “I’ll come get you! Are you in danger?”

She just pats your shoulder, looking back at you with big sad eyes. “You might be the most powerful being in this reality, but there isn’t anything you can do for me anymore. I’m sorry. What I want you to do is succeed and be happy.”

“But-!”

“Just keep remembering, okay?” she pleads, and then she’s gone, and once again you’re tumbling down through emptiness. 

_ Remember.  _

:::

Your name is MICAH. It’s not the name you were given at birth, but it’s a name you chose for yourself when you changed your hair, your pronouns, the way you dressed in a life not so far away from where you are now. Your name is  _ Micah.  _ Micah… something.

What the hell is your last name? 

Why are you trying to remember that…? 

_ Boldir. _ Remember Boldir. 

Her words come back to you about you not being able to do anything for her anymore. They ricochet around the inside of your brain, becoming more and more agonizing to think about until you’re wailing into the nothingness of your subconscious. Your heart is breaking into a million pieces just like that damn cafeteria floor. 

Because you know that Boldir Lamati is dead. 

_ And you never even got to say goodbye.  _

In a moment of time that might have been five minutes or five years, you begin to feel your body again-- all four-feet-eleven-inches of you, even though you really do  _ not _ want to go back to the land of the living. Living sucks ass. 

Somebody is running their hand through your hair, gentle and smooth. You want to just lay there forever, letting whoever this is hold you, but then you hear somebody speak nearby and your eyes open all on their own. 

“They’re coming to!”

You meet the concerned gaze of Lynera, who’s wringing her hands fretfully as she stares down at you. A familiar ceiling spotted with bioluminescent fungi hangs low above your head, and there’s a jade green blanket tossed over your torso. 

“Well, this certainly rings a few bells,” you mumble to yourself. You look up and realize you’re in Polypa’s lap. She’s not normally one for pale PDA, so the fact that she's holding you so close with somebody else around is a little strange. Her long hair is tickling your face, making you sneeze and scrub at your nose. 

“How are you feeling?” she whispers. 

“Awful.”

“How so?”

“One of my friends is dead.”

“How do you--”

“I had a dream where she came to me. She’s done it before. Polypa, sometimes I… I have dreams that tell me about the future. And the past. And the present.”

She exhales, quietly stunned. “I’m sorry, Micah.”

You nod, doing your best to fight back tears and failing. Even the sound of your own name isn’t helping you feel better. 

Footsteps approach, slow and careful, and you look over to see Lynera crouch down next to you. “We think you had some kind of seizure? Your moirail said that you started talking really strangely, and then you collapsed and started to spasm. Then she brought you to the caverns. You were out  _ all day.” _

“Yeah, that sounds like a seizure.” So, you have seizures now. Fantastic. 

“There isn’t a whole lot of information on these kinds of things, but I’ll keep looking around to see if anybody has information on mental disorders-- not that I think you’re mental! I just want to make sure you don’t collapse out in public, because if the wrong troll sees you do that you’ll get culled and it’ll be horrible and we can’t lose you again! So you should probably take it easy for the rest of the night. I’ll tell Bronya to… um, where are you going?”

You stagger as you put all of your body weight on to your feet. Your head is spinning, but you don’t give up. 

“I have to go commit a murder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... yeah. 
> 
> So, you're probably wondering if Boldir is really dead. In the traditional sense, yes. In other ways... not really. She's stubborn like that. The exact circumstance of her death will be explained as the story progresses. 
> 
> Also, Flight, why "Micah"? What's so special about that name that you wanted to name the Guardian that? 
> 
> The answer? It's a beautiful name and I like it a whole lot! Short, cute, and gender-neutral, just like the babe themselves. 
> 
> Poor Micah. :(


	19. Of Relationships and Rebellions

Your name is WANSHI ADYATA and you think you just walked in on a muscular theatre session between an alien, an oliveblood, and Lynera Skalbi. 

The night had started out normally enough, except a little bit better than usual because one of your classes got canceled, which almost  _ never _ happens! You decided to go see if Daraya wanted to finish creating her  _ Soldier Purrbeasts _ OC with you, but she was busy because of her chores. That made you try to find Karako instead but one of the older girls told you he left earlier for church. Annoyed, you went off to the dining hall to grab a snack, only to run into Lanque. Lanque asked if you wanted to help make your friend calm the hell down. 

And here you are. 

“Polypa! Let  _ go!” _ Micah cries, thrashing violently in the oliveblood’s arms. Wow, you’ve never seen a non-jadeblooded troll in the caverns before. “Put me-- why can’t I teleport? Why can’t I-!”

“You need to calm down!” Lynera begs, trying and failing to restrain the alien’s arms. She’s afraid of hurting them, but that means she isn’t using the strength she needs to subdue them. 

“Calm down my ass!”

“Micah, we can’t let you go kill a god because you feel like it,” Polypa tries to reason. She tries to shoosh-pap them, only for them to rear back and kick at her kneecaps. 

“He killed my  _ friend! _ I will tear down this  _ entire solar system!” _

Hazel eyes flash pure green, and your bloodpusher starts to race in fear. You creep closer to Lanque, who’s been silent, but he doesn’t look afraid so you won’t be either. Friends being scared of each other isn’t what real friends do. 

He clears his throat. Everybody stops what they’re doing and stares at him. “Micah, what was the first thing I said to you when we met at Ardata’s party?”

Micah blinks. “I, uh… you asked me why I look the way I do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To distract you.”

In one swift movement, Polypa arranges them into a wiggler-carry in her arms and sits down on the loungeplank, holding them tight enough so they can’t escape. 

“Traitor,” Micah growls. 

“It’s only temporary, darling. As much as I’d love to help you wipe that Scratch bastard from the face of the multiverse for all he’s done, now is simply not the time. You’re in no shape to be doing something like that.”

“Or  _ ever! _ Please don’t run off to fight a god!” Lynera pleads. 

Lanque scoffs. “Well, I’d help you fight a god, even if _she_ won’t. But I digress.”

“Lanque! Don’t give them ideas!”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up!”

“Or what? Going to cry about it, Ska-?”

“BOTH OF YOU ARE GIVING ME A FUCKING MIGRAINE. OH MY GOD. SOMETIMES I WISH ULTIMATE DIRK SNAPPED MY NECK WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE. IF YOU BOTH DON’T SHUT UP I’M TELLING BRONYA YOU PITCH FLIRTED IN FRONT OF WANSHI. I AM SERIOUSLY AT MY LIMIT, FOLKS. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.”

You stare in awe as Lanque, Lynera, and Polypa all back away as Micah leaps to their feet and bears down on Lanque with a furious snarl. “Do  _ not _ antagonize Lynera!” They turn and point at the girl in question, who is trying to flatten herself into the wall while looking anywhere but at them.  _ “Don’t _ tell me what to do! And  _ you.” _ They glare down at Polypa. “If you ever restrain me like that again I’m breaking up with you.”

With that, they whirl around, storm up the stairs, and slam the door behind them hard enough for it to rattle on its hinges. 

A moment of dead silence deafens everybody in the room. 

“... Is it just me or was that kind of hot?” Lanque asks. 

Lynera swallows nervously. “I think we broke them.”

Polypa nods, looking immensely sad and guilty. 

You sigh. You know what you need to do. “I’m gonna go talk to them.”

All three of the grown-ups turn to look down at you. 

“Are you sure, Wanshi? They seemed pretty upset.” Lynera says. She picks at a loose thread on her sleeve, one of her many nervous habits. “It might be best to just let them cool down.”

You cross your arms. “No! They just need somebody to actually  _ listen _ to them. Bye!”

Lynera calls after you as you run up the stairs, but you’re on a mission and Wanshi Adyaya  _ never _ fails a mission. 

Their scent trail is super distinct ‘cause they don’t smell anything like a troll, so you’re able to follow it all the way back up to the main level, and then to the main entrance. You have to dodge a bunch of other girls who are going to class due to the fact that _ you’re _ supposed to be going to class… but you don’t really care. You’re doing something far more important than learning about stuff you can just ask Lanque about later. 

Just as you reach the tunnel that leads to the outside world, the trail abruptly doubles back and you have to turn around. You walk along it patiently as it takes you to one of the offshoots that almost nobody knows about except you and a choice few others. 

… You are SUNPETAL of SHADECASTE, and you are tracking down your wayward castemate after they ran away from a Gathering gone awry. TWINKLEMOON of STORMCASTE, former rogue turned popular caste-cat, must be found and comforted no matter what the cost! All five castes grieved as if they lost their own family after they mysteriously disappeared for half a sweep, presumed dead by all. That sort of thing must  _ never _ happen again!

Sniffing the air, you confirm you’re on the right track and keep marching on into the dimly-lit tunnel. Fresh air blows over your face, bringing with it the odor of acid rain. 

You find them curled up at the small opening, watching lightning crackle in the late evening sky. 

“I know you’ve come and gone farther than most, Twinklemoon, but I’m afraid where you rest won’t give you any shelter from the storm,” you announce. 

They shake their head as they gaze up at the dark clouds. “I fear no storm except the one inside me, Sunpetal.”

“Storms can be scary,” you agree. “And yet rain gives life to plants and animals, and the wind blows away the sorrows of yesterday, and the lightning starts fires that clear away dead vegetation so that new forests may grow in its stead.”

“So there is beauty in suffering?”

“No. But there’s always hope.”

Micah looks back at you, sighs, and hops down from the ledge, closing the hatch behind them as the first drops of acid rain begin to fall. One lands on their arm, and they wipe at it with an absent grunt of pain. 

“Try not to be too angry with them,” you tell them. “They want to help you, and they really care about you-- we all do. We just don’t know how to show it. You’re not a troll, so yeah.”

“... You don’t have to involve yourself in this kind of stuff, Wanshi,” they say quietly.

You huff. “Well, I want to be involved. I’m part of the rebellion, too.”

They grin, something in their eyes softening. “I know.”

“Are you mad ‘cause you’re hurting?”

“... Yeah. I’m… not well, Wanshi. My brain isn’t, anyways.” They sit down on the carpet and pull their bony knees up to their chest. “I don’t know exactly how trolls behave in response to trauma, but for humans we have flashbacks to the event that hurt us, and we get angry for no good reason, and sometimes when we’re angry we accidentally hurt the people around us.”

“How are you gonna get better?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to get worse before I get better.”

“Because you don’t know how to get better.”

“Exactly.”

You think about that, and then you think about what you could say to make them feel a little better. “Sometimes Karako gets angry because he’s super smart but he can’t communicate like you or I do. That doesn’t mean he deserves to be lonely. It just means we each have to work a little harder to understand what’s going on.”

Micah turns to face you, pale brows furrowing. “Wanshi? How smart  _ is _ Karako?”

“Wellllll… he can draw really well. And he always knows what people are feeling! Like, he always knows what’s going on when I talk to him. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I think the way his brain works lets him understand things a little differently. Not more or less, just… different,” you explain. 

“... Huh.”

“What I’m trying to say is that you should talk to us more. Maybe you’re a pale slut, but you’re  _ our _ pale slut, so we want to hear about your problems!” you declare. 

They burst out laughing and fall back, throwing an arm over their face. “Oh, geez, don’t let Bronya hear you talk like that!”

You blow a raspberry at them. “I’m gonna be a teenager in a few sweeps! I don’t care what Bronya thinks!”

“I know.”

“Or Lynera.”

“Alright, alright. Thanks for talking with me, Wanshi.”

“No problem! Just promise that you’ll keep talking to us so we can help you.” You hold out your “pinkie finger” as they call it, and they reach out to link it with their own. “No more secrets.”

A flash of something like pain darkens their eyes for a split second, but it comes and goes so quick you’re honestly not sure if you even saw anything at all. “... Okay.”

“Good. Wanna go back to the others and get your moirail out of here? It’s kind of illegal for anybody except jadebloods to be here.”

Hazel eyes grow round. “Oh, shit, I completely forgot about that.”

The both of you run all the way back to Lynera’s study, but you can’t stop giggling at Micah’s little utterances of “Shitshitshitshitshitshit--” under their breath. Something about them reminds you of a fussy baby purrbeast.

The next several minutes of your life are very entertaining. 

“Polypa! Why are you here? It’s illegal!” Micah yells as they tear down the stairs to Lynera’s study at maximum velocity. “It’s _ illegal!” _

You watch as the two start squabbling. Polypa is on the verge of a messy breakdown because hello, her moirail just threatened to break up with her, Micah is yelling at her for risking her life by being in the caverns, Lanque has somehow gotten a bag of chips and is munching away while looking totally enthralled by the whole mess, and Lynera keeps trying to no-clip through the floor. That or she’s constipated, you don’t know for sure. 

“Can I have one?” you ask Lanque. 

He passes you the bag, never taking his eyes off Micah and Polypa. “Wanshi, what you’re seeing right now is the reality of serious relationships. It is also the highest form of entertainment known to trollkind.”

“Lanque, that’s our friend and their moirail, not entertainment!” Lynera hisses. 

“My dearest Lynera, I said their  _ situation _ is funny, not the people themselves. There’s a difference.”

“Not really!”

“Oh, shush. You wouldn’t know what humor is if it slapped your ass and insulted your lusus.”

“And you wouldn’t know what being a decent person is like if it put you on evenings for the rest of the sweep for cavern duties.”

Oh, boy. You lean back as Lanque turns to glare at Lynera with utter disdain, but thankfully Micah and Polypa put a stop to the fistfight that would no doubt have happened by wrapping up their argument. 

“Well, I’ve just received word that an old associate who makes  _ electro-bombs _ is back in town from vacation. I think I’m going to pay him a visit,” Polypa huffs, brushing by Micah with her head held high. 

They splutter. “Fine! You do that. A-And be careful!”

“I will!”

“Good!”

“Text somebody we both know as soon as you leave so I know you’re safe!”

“Fine! I was going to do that anyways.”

“You better.”

Polypa slams the door behind her, only to reemerge and glare around the corner at her moirail. “Love you. Take a shower.”

She runs off before Micah can get the last word. 

“What’s up with everybody telling me to take a shower!” they yell, throwing their hands up in the air. “I  _ try, _ okay? Not my fault I’m a stinky little human!”

“Do you want to use my shower?” Lynera offers. 

“... Yeah. Thanks.”

You nod, satisfied. “My work here is done.”

Deciding Micah is in good hands and that Lanque and Lynera aren’t going to rip each other’s throats out, you race up the stairs and out of the study to go find the scary oliveblood girl who is also somehow your alien friend’s moirail. 

There’s something you need to ask her. 

By the time you catch up to her she’s already out of the caverns and making her way down the trail to the city, but you don’t let that stop you. Her legs are way longer than yours, so you have to jog to keep up. 

She gives you a confused look as you fall into step alongside her. It’s always been pretty funny to you how other castes really have no idea how to interact with trolls younger than them. “Uh, aren’t you supposed to be back underground?”

“My bio class doesn’t start for another half hour. I gotta ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“So, I wanna fight too, right? Like, in the rebellion with you guys! But Lanque says I’m too young. So can you tell me how I can be a part of everything, too?”

Polypa slows before coming to a halt. “Kid, look. As much as I’d happily shove Bombyx off a rooftop, I have to say he’s in the right about this one. You should feel lucky you have a reason to not get involved in all this shit.”

Anger makes your lips curl up. “Wow. And I thought you might actually be cool.”

“Manipulation doesn’t work on me, but nice try.”

“Come on, you have to give me  _ something!” _

“... How about this?” She squats down a little to look you in the eye. “Go enjoy your wigglerhood for all the kids who don’t get to. It’ll be over before you know it, believe me. Have fun, make a lot of friends, see if there are any other jades who might be interested in making the world a better place. It’s the little things that count.”

She’s gone before you can respond, and then it’s just you and the steady patter of rain that’s starting to sting your skin. 

You don’t even bother to pretend to listen to Lynera’s scolding as she meets you at the cave entrance with a towel. Polypa’s words ring around the insides of your pan like church bells.To be more specific, the last thing she said. 

You’re still wet when you go to class with a towel around your shoulders and without a single bit of motivation to actually listen to the instructor, but for the first time since this whole thing started, a little spark of hope warms you from the inside out. 

Your name is Wanshi Adyata, and you’re going to lead the first jadeblood rebellion in Alternian history. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanshi -> Go sicko mode
> 
> Forreal tho, I love my baby girl. She just wants everybody to be okay. And for people to stop treating her like a little kid. 
> 
> Next chapter is the one y'all have probably been waiting for since this pic began... Micah returns to the future to talk to the Homestuck trolls about the rebellion!


	20. Of Explanations and Shenanigans

Your name is MICAH, and ten nights have come and gone in what felt like a few hours. 

It’s still early enough that even Lynera is still asleep in the next room over, which is really saying something because that girl is up at the asscrack of dusk no matter what night it is. You’re curled up on the sofa in the study, staring at a fungus-shaped nightlight that does a poor job of actually illuminating the surrounding area, and wondering what the  _ hell  _ you were going to tell your friends in the future. 

_ Hey, guys! Sorry I kind of dropped off the grid for a while there. I fought this fucked-up version of one of my human friends, vanished into the literal void to take a nap because I was super tired from splitting a whole universe apart, and then traveled back to the past to help fight in a literal revolution… because I want to save my other friends, I guess? You don’t have to worry about that changing the future or whatever, I promise! I’m literally a god now, so I have total control over time and space.  _

Geez. You hope Vriska is ready to stop the others from kicking your ass. 

Should you just go? You could easily spend the night on future Alternia and be back by breakfast. Teleporting still makes you a little nervous; the fear of messing up still lingers in the back of your head, but nothing bad has happened yet, so… 

Yeah, you’re definitely not getting any more sleep. Might as well be productive. 

You roll off the couch with a grunt, stagger a bit as all the blood rushes down to your legs, and then stumble over to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. Maybe you were about to pull up to the future to get yelled at by a bunch of teenagers, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like crap. 

The person looking back at you in the mirror startles you more than you’d like to admit. Their eyes are tired but wild, like a feral animal that’s been hunted to the point of exhaustion. Too-pale skin reflects the ceiling lights with an intensity that hurts your head if you look for too long. The dark shadows underneath both eyes are so dark they look like smudged mascara. You’ve always been very fair, even for a white kid, but you know that looking like this can’t be healthy.

Then there’s the fact that you’re still pretty underweight. You’ve been doing your best to eat on a somewhat regular basis, but you just don’t feel hungry anymore. It’s like your body already decided to give up. 

And to be honest, the rest of you isn’t too far behind.

“Look at you. Sans Undertale looking-ass,” you tell the shadow in the mirror. 

The shadow blinks in agreement at the same time you do.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. Moving as quickly as you can, you brush your teeth and do your best to assemble yourself into what could maybe pass for a functional human being and leave to go get dressed. 

You’re rifling through your backpack for your water bottle when the lights come on in Lynera’s room. The bedroom door cracks open, and a messy head of pair pokes out, bits of sopor slime still clinging to black curls. 

“Micah? What are you doing up so early?” she yawns. 

“I, ah, I gotta go visit some friends a ways out of town. I’ll be back in a bit,” you promise. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t! A new cluster of eggs is due to hatch tonight and I want to be there!” she practically sings as she gets ready. 

You feel the sadness leave your body as Lynera practically prances around as she gets ready for her shift. It’s not often she lets down her walls, but when she does, you can’t help but take a step back to enjoy the show. 

“Give those babies some love for me,” you tell her as you hoist your backpack over your shoulders.

“I will!”

_ Alright. Here we go. _ You close your eyes and visualize Vriska’s living room. That’s a good place to start, right? You’ll have a quick talk with Vriska, you’ll go visit your other friends one at a time to explain what’s going on, and then you can talk to those who are interested about helping the rebellion from the future. 

Time and space part easily as you zap out of Lynera’s study and--

“-- worry about OH MY FUCKING GOD.”

You yelp in surprise as somebody shrieks at a deafening volume right next to your ear. Instincts take over, and you spring backward into something big and hard. That ‘something’ turns out to be a bookshelf, as you soon find out as a couple of novels fall from the top shelves and hit you right on the head. 

“Ow!  _ Shit!” _

And that’s when you realize you have twelve young teenagers sitting around Vriska’s living room, all staring at you in various degrees of shock. Nepeta, Equius, Kanaya, and Sollux are all on the sofa, with Sollux perched on the backrest like he’s ready to take flight. Terezi and Vriska are standing on the coffee table together for some reason. Eridan’s curled up on the loveseat with one hand on his rifle. All of the others are sprawled out on the carpet. 

All of the others except for Karkat, that is, who seems to have been returning from the kitchen with a pile of chips on his plate. 

“Oh, hi!” Aradia says cheerfully. “Wow, I can see your bones--”

“THEY’RE BAAAAAAAACK!” Vriska hollers, launching herself off the coffee table and slamming into you at full speed. 

The air is smooshed out of your lungs before you can brace yourself for impact. Thankfully, Vriska catches you before you can eat shit, otherwise you would have probably just teleported back to past Alternia and tried this whole thing again some other time. 

“Hey, Vris,” you wheeze, patting her back. “Happy to see you too.”

“Fucking HELL, don’t do that,” Karkat yells, stomping over to the sofa and plopping down next to Kanaya. Kanaya purses her lips in mild amusement and delicately plucks a chip from his plate to eat. 

Vriska just scoffs. “Don’t be a baby, Vantas, you know full well Micah can teleport--”

“Eat my full ass, Serket.”

“Hi, Micah!” Nepeta trills. A general murmur of greetings follows that, some more enthusiastic than others. Sollux, Equius, and Tavros all seem to be very on-edge tonight. 

Feferi actually hops up to give you a hug as well, thankfully with a lot more care than Vriska had. It’s becoming weirdly normal to know that this big-ass six-sweep old girl could crush your skull like an eggshell. 

“Don’t worry, nobody’s mad at you, I promise,” she whispers in your ear. 

“Huh?”

Vriska grins and clasps your shoulder. “Oh, I already told them everything.”

“... Oh, boy.”

You turn back to the others and try your best winning smile. 

“Yeah, what the fuck, dude?” Sollux demands. 

“How are we even gonna  _ exist _ with this kind of thing?” Karkat splutters, throwing his hands up in the air. 

Tavros winces. “We get that you can do crazy space-time stuff, but--”

“You’re in way over your pan, retard!”

_ Ah, fuck. _ “Listen, guys, I know what I’m doing sounds pretty insane. And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how exactly I’m going to pull all of this off because… you know, time shenanigans. But I need you guys to trust in me, at least for now. Also, Karkat, let’s not use that word. It’s extremely disrespectful.”

“Who are you, my lusus?” he challenges. 

“No. Should I zap over and get him myself?”

“NO!”

“That’s what I thought.”

Vriska snickers under her breath. Karkat gives her a look that just  _ screams  _ murder. 

  
  
Everybody else still looks a little queasy. Guilt rears its ugly head for the millionth time in the hour you’ve been awake, fearful and taunting and ashamed all at the same time. If you could just tell them everything, right now, you wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore. 

_ Tell them.  _

You don’t, because you’re a coward, but you do try and calm everybody’s nerves again. “To elaborate on what Tavros just tried to say, yes, I can do crazy space-time stuff. Which means I can do stuff in one point in time and it won’t completely fuck up all the other points in time. It’ll change things, sure, but it won’t erase  _ people.” _

“What about our memories?” Eridan asks tersely. 

“Definitely not,” you tell him.  _ I won’t let that happen. _ “If everything goes according to plan, things will just start… changing.”

“We’re gonna make a new world that’s better for everybody!” Vriska announces proudly. “That’s why you guys are all here today.”

“By our human friend fighting in a rebellion that was already lost? Setting aside the fact that’s…  _ treason… _ that also sounds rather dangerous. Micah, you aren’t a great fighter,” Equius says. His voice is quiet, but he’s so stiff you could probably use him to prop open a barn door. 

“A rebellion is a lot more than just fighting, dude. So far I’ve just helped teleport people around,” you remind him. 

“... Still.”

Nepeta suddenly surges to her feet, eyes blazing. “I don’t  _ care _ that it’s treason! Don’t you care about what they did to me? My whole neighborhood got burned down in a drone strike!”

“Nepeta--”

“No! I remember everything now. I’m gonna help them win, ‘cause, ‘cause… even though we all had to suffer, the ones who come after us might not have to.”

Nobody speaks for many heartbeats after that. Something about what she said rings inside your head, sticking to your neurons like glue. 

“See? Nepeta knows what’s good!” Terezi yells. 

“This is insane.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome!”

“I’m in,” Aradia agrees, winking at you as she smooths her skirt down. Your anxiety backs down a little at her blatant support. Aradia  _ Knows Things, _ right? Surely if she thinks you should keep doing what you’re doing…

“So am I,” Tavros announces, setting his jaw defiantly. Nepeta seems to have set off a chain reaction, because everybody else sits up a little straighter, eyeing each other as if daring anybody else to go first. 

“And I,” Kanaya adds. 

Karkat groans. “Fuck you guys. Fine! It’s not like we can play SGRUB anymore.”

“You guys are gonna die,” Sollux says, scrubbing his face with the palms of his hands. “We. Are. All. Gonna. Die.”

“So are you in?” you ask, reaching over to poke his arm. 

He smacks your hand away. “Get fucked. Sure. Whatever.”

“Yay!”

Eridan huffs quietly and crosses his arms. “Well, you guys are gonna need somebody with power to help. And money. I’m in.”

Equius turns to stare at him with his jaw nearly on the floor, and you’re so full of pride you think you’re going to explode. You should have known your friends would eventually come around. And with not one, but  _ two _ whole seadwellers on their side, they were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with. 

“I knew it! I knew you cared!” Feferi squeals, jabbing a finger at her ex-moirail. Eridan curls up tighter on himself, but that doesn’t stop a small smile from lighting up his face. 

“Is that a yes from you, Feferi?” 

“It’s a  _ hell _ yes, Micah!”

Gamzee smiles lazily from underneath the coffee table. “I told you motherfuckers. I told you a miracle was coming, and here it is.”

Poor Equius looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “I-I… you can’t possibly, I mean--”

“If you’ll excuse us!” Nepeta chirps, effortlessly pulling her moirail from the couch and slinging him over her muscular shoulders. The indigoblood yelps indignantly, but Nepeta just prances on upstairs as if she’s carrying a sack of potatoes and not a teenage boy nearly twice her size. 

“What’s up with olivebloods and being insanely buff? I mean, my girlfriend’s taken on a jadeblood and a teal at the same time and she won,” you wonder. 

Karkat immediately focuses on you with the intensity of a laser. “A girlfriend? You’re in a relationship?”

“Micah’s got a girlfriend!” Feferi yells, picking you up and twirling you around. 

“What quadrant?”

“Is she cute?”

“An oliveblood, right-?”

“We wanna meet her!”

_ “Guys! _ Can we please focus on taking down the Empire? We can gossip about Micah’s love life later!” Vriska yells, clapping her hands for order. 

You rest an elbow on Feferi’s shoulder, enjoying being tall for the moment as she’s carrying you. “Ooh! You got a mission plan, Vriska?”

“You bet your skinny alien ass I do!” She pauses for emphasis and puffs out her chest. “We’re gonna go beat up a bitch for using lowbloods as FLARP bait!”

“Didn’t you do the exact same thing not too long ago?” Karkat scoffs. 

Vriska scowls down at him. “Yes! Yes, I did! But now I’m gonna turn things around and help them instead, okay? ‘Cause I’m changing my…. my  _ toxic behavior.” _

She looks to you for support, and you give her the thumbs-up. 

The others actually look a little impressed, which gives her the courage to keep going. “In half an hour Terezi and I are going to meet this violetblood dude who’s been responsible for a lot of rust and bronze deaths in the area. It’s a FLARP session at sea, so he’ll have his team-- I mean  _ hostages-- _ on board with him.”

“You need a team?” you ask. 

“You offering?”

“Of course.”

“Yes! But no passing out on me! Our goal is to neutralize the threat, secure the hostages, and deliver them back to shore so they can go home. Any questions?”

“I’m coming too,” Eridan says. He hops to his feet, dusting off some invisible debris on his pants. “That’s not a question, though.”

“Can I come? It sounds exciting,” Aradia begs. 

“Sure! Anybody else?” Vriska scans the crowd with a smirk, as if saying  _ You are all too pussy for this kind of adventure.  _

Unfortunately, it works. Karkat and Feferi step forward as well, which brings the team total up to six. Everybody else gets ready to go home before the sun comes up. Out on the horizon, heat lightning crackles in the sky like a strobe ball. You end up leaving your jacket with your backpack on the couch, because even for somebody who has trouble retaining heat, Alternian summers are brutal. 

Surprisingly, the team figures out their FLARP-ing shit quickly enough, as they all played at one point or the other. You still have no idea what to make out of all the numbers and stats and scores that come with each move, even though Vriska makes it all look like child’s play. Karkat keeps grumbling about “games for girls” which has your hackles up until you remember that female trolls tend to be more violent than the males. That makes sense to you, especially when you remember Remele beating the shit out of that purpleblood and all of Lynera’s knives. 

In almost no time at all the six of you are sailing out to sea, the wind in your hair and the smell of salt water filling your nose. If you close your eyes and pretended, you could almost imagine you’re back on Earth, taking a boat ride with your mom’s boyfriend and your stepsister at the lakehouse--

A particularly large wave knocks you back on your ass, and the memory cuts off as quickly as it began. 

“Fuck!” you hiss, trying to get your bearings. You try as hard as you can to visualize what you just remembered, but all you can recall is sunlight sparkling off water, the rumble of an engine, a man laughing and nearly choking on his beer as your tiny preteen self got knocked around by the rocking of the motorboat.

A strong hand picks you up by the arm and sets you on your feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Fef.” You pat her elbow. “Sometimes it’s rough being a little guy.”

Her eyes are round with sympathy. “Looks like it. That reminds me, I wanna ask your opinion on something really important.”

“Oh, okay!”  _ Wow, the Heiress of Alternia is asking my opinion on something? Talk about friends in high places.  _

_ … Wait, what was I trying to remember?  _

“What do you think of the hemospectrum?”

You purse your lips. “Well, if that ain’t a loaded question I dunno what is.”

“I mean, you don’t have to answer, but…” 

“You know what I think? I think that the hemospectrum could have been a really good thing. Those who live for quite some time, paving the way for those who won’t be here as long? Sounds great. But then it became about power and control. And-And I think that if-- that once we win, we can’t go back to that system. There’s just too much trauma that’s been birthed from it that’s affected literally every troll to have ever existed,” you explain. 

Feferi considers that, and then she nods in agreement. “That makes sense.”

“Oh, shit, is it big brain hour?” Terezi calls from the wheel. 

“It is!” You promptly do a double-take. “Why is the blind girl driving?”

“Vriska’s getting dressed.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Forward.”

“Bruh.”

Karkat throws up for the fifth time over the side of the ship. You groan and stumble over to him to pat his back. 

“You’ll get your sea legs soon,” you promise. 

“I hate the ocean. Why does there need to be oceans. I never would have thought I would ever say this but by infant Troll Jegus do I miss Texas. It’s hot, it’s human-racist, but there is hardly any damn water and for that it’s easily one of the best places I’ve ever been,” he rasps. 

You smile. “Wanna see Dave after this is over?”

“Yes, please. Strider’s bullshit is the only thing that can numb me to the pain of occupying the realm of mortals.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan smirk. You turn to look at him in confusion, and he makes the quadrant symbol for  _ flushcrush: _ two thumbs pressed together over the center of his chest, where a troll’s heart would be. 

_ Really? _ you mouth at him, delighted by this unexpected turn of events. He nods eagerly, clearly just as enthusiastic about Karkat getting a boyfriend as you are, but before you can sneak off with him to get the tea his gaze fixates on something past you. 

You turn to see the small speck of what is undoubtedly another ship coming your way. A ship that is much bigger and fancier than the  _ 8rigantine, _ at full sail and most likely armed to the teeth. 

“He’s coming on our eleven!” Feferi calls up to Terezi. 

“Go get Vriska,” the tealblood orders. Her perfectly white fangs flash in the light of the moons as she grins like a shark. “Time to kick this bitchboy’s ass!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Pirates of the Caribbean theme playing at full volume*


	21. Of Texas, Really Fucking Hot, But For Real Fuck Houston

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you can’t stop thinking of that video John showed you that one time with the human gamer yelling  _ “CAPTAIN! LOOOOOK!” _ even though this is very much real life and there is a fucking enormous pirate ship barrelling right at you. 

You barely have your sickles out before Vriska comes barging out of her cabin in full pirate ensemble, sword strapped to her waist and fangs bared. “Eridan, take the lead with me! Aradia, Terezi, and Karkat follow. Try not to get yourselves killed. Micah, up to the crow’s nest and see what the enemy is doing. Feferi, keep us at full clip in a circle.”

“I’m not a very good captain!” Feferi yelps as she almost snaps the wheel in half. 

“Don’t worry about it, the  _ 8rigantine’s _ been through some serious shit. She can take a rookie at the wheel!”

Micah zaps up to the crow’s nest with the eyepiece and trains it on the enemy ship. Despite your bloodpusher hammering away in your chest cavity, your feet carry you over to Aradia and Terezi, both grinning ear-to-ear like the maniacs they are. Both are amazing fighters, and you are… very small. Small, and not very strong. 

If Crabdad could see you right now you know the old guy would shit himself on the spot. 

“Why am I here,” you mutter, gripping your sickles for all they’re worth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck--”

“Shouldn’t  _ Feferi _ be giving the orders?” Eridan mutters to Vriska, scowling. 

Vriska sneers back at him. “My ship, my rules. If you don’t like it you can swim back to shore.”

“I’ll throw you overboard first, bitch.”

“Good to see some things never change,” Aradia snickers, but you can’t bring yourself to rib Eridan for his black crush as you watch the other ship pull right up against the  _ 8rigantine.  _

“What’s it look like?” Terezi asks. 

“Big. Probably one-and-a-half times the size of the  _ 8rigantine…”  _ You trail off as you see the hostages on board and do a quick count. “There’s about fifteen lowbloods on board. Most of them are rusts and bronzes. I see one gold.”

“A psionic?”

“Yep.”

“Dibs,” Aradia calls. 

“He’s all yours,” you mumble, beginning to regret being hatched. 

Well, it’s too late to back out now. Aradia lays out the plank with her telekinesis and sends a massive shockwave across to the other ship before the terrified hostages can so much as try to rally together. 

“Aradia! Don’t  _ hurt _ them!” Micah wails in protest. 

“Sorry!” 

She doesn’t look very sorry, but Vriska and Eridan are already charging across the plank together with fearsome battle cries, Terezi right behind them with swords drawn and Aradia bringing up the rear. From the crow’s nest, Micah yells something about the violetblood captain being in his cabin. 

“Oh, I am so getting grounded for this,” you tell nobody in particular, and then you bound across the plank in four quick strides, ignoring the dark, churning waters below, and fling yourself into the fray. 

Some bronzeblood takes a swing at you the second your feet hit the deck, but you can tell her bloodpusher really isn’t in it when she scrambles back as you knick her cheek with one of your blades. You dodge around a pair of unarmed rustbloods, sweep the feet out from underneath another bronze, and end up back-to-back with Terezi. 

Not too long ago you would have been losing your mind at the thought of fighting alongside the girl you crushed on for a pretty sizable amount of your miserable existence, but at the moment you kind of want to smack her upside the head for letting Vriska drag you guys into this. “Where’s your crazy-ass moirail?”

“Looking for our target! Micah said he’s in his cabin,” she yells over a rustblood girl’s furious screeches as Terezi is able to deflect every blow. 

You swipe at a boy who tries to lunge for your arm. “Well I wish she’d hurry--”

A shockwave knocks your flat on your ass before you can finish that sentence. Your ears ring, and you roll over with a groan to see Aradia and the goldblood psionic circling each other, both crackling with invisible energy. 

“Back off! Back!” the psionic shrieks, blasting yellow sparks at Aradia. “He’ll kill us all if we lose the session!”

“Nobody’s dying today,” Aradia tells him calmly. 

“What?!”

“Just keep fighting. We’re here to help.”

Some of the other hostages obviously overheard the whole thing, because you see several stop circling a hissing Eridan to turn and stare at her. None of them have even tried to attack him. He uses the opportunity to break free and roundhouse the psionic into the mast, knocking him out cold and sending cracks up the wood. 

A nearby  _ zap  _ alerts you to the cavalry’s arrival. “Eridan!”

“He was attacking Aradia-!”   
  


_ “Micahlookout!” _

The mast splinters apart at the base and comes down through the deck, before toppling over towards your alien friend. They teleport out of the way just in time, reappearing to grab the unconscious goldblood and disappearing again. 

The bronzeblood boy you’ve been swatting at scrubs furiously at his ganderbulbs. “What the-- did I just-?”

“Yeah, they do that,” you explain. 

“I wanna go home.”

“Same.”

The sound of glass breaking has everybody jumping back as Vriska and the violetblood dude come tumbling out of the cabin window, screaming and clawing each other up with no mercy whatsoever. Serket’s metal arm is making progress in tearing a gash in the violetblood’s side, but he’s still way stronger than her and just as angry. 

“You fucking  _ bitch! _ This isn’t how you play the game!” he snarls, kneeing her in the gut so hard you hear something snap. 

She spits blue blood into his face. “This isn’t a game anymore.”

He kicks her off him and springs to his feet, only for a blast of energy to carve a perfect hole through the center of his chest before he can so much as cuss her out again. There’s no blood, no bits of flesh dangling down into the gap. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan lower his rifle, brows drawn together in concentration.

You stare in shock as Vriska kicks the still-standing corpse overboard. 

The following splash is the only sound to be heard for the next couple of moments. You and Micah make eye contact and stare at each other for a little bit. Eridan and Vriska high-five and start ushering the hostages across the plank to the  _ 8rigantine. _ Aradia just shrugs and helps a bronze girl with a bad knee to her feet so they can go, guiding Terezi along with her other hand. 

“Well, that was quick,” you mumble, making your way over to Micah. 

They don’t show any outward signs of distress, but the way their gaze doesn’t focus on anything in particular once you both make it to the other side tells you everything you need to know. You want to throw Serket overboard as well; for fuck’s sake, she  _ knows _ humans are fragile about these sort of things!

They look over at you. “Guess that’s one way to do it.”

“Yeah.” You look out at the horizon, where a pod of skywhales are surfacing to breathe. “I’ll be honest. This rebellion stuff is way less fun than I thought it was gonna be.”

“Me too. Wanna get out of here once we get the hostages back to shore?”

_ Oh, fuck yes. _ “Sure. Can we get some of your weird human food?”

“Ask Dave, my guy. I’m broke as hell.”

“Fine.”

You wait impatiently as Micah helps the others down to the beach once the  _ 8rigantine _ makes it to shore, but you can’t help but feel a surge of warmth when you see the dawning realization on the former prisoners’ faces when they realize that they’ll be going home. You’re smiling as a few of the younger kids grow brave enough to give Micah hugs, which is understandable given that the alien is very soft and huggable. It’s no surprise to you that they’ve managed to land in somebody’s diamond. 

“Nothing like trauma to help bring people together,” they say as you watch the group walk off together towards town. “One of them said that they’re gonna make a group chat and call it ‘Hostage Gang’.”

Everybody gets a good chuckle out of that, and most of the tension leaves as you guys head back to Vriska’s hive. Terezi and Aradia start arguing about what blood caste has the thickest skull bone, with Terezi in favor of seadwellers and Aradia insisting it’s the indigos. 

Micah bumps your arm. “Ready to go?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. Lemme grab my backpack.”

They zap away and are back in the span of two seconds, backpack slung over their shoulder. You have to tell yourself not to stare, even if you’re still definitely not used to your weird alien friend’s wacky spacetime powers. 

Vriska’s face falls. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna bring Karkat to Earth to hang out. I’ll be back soon,” Micah tells her. 

“... Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Aw, missing your lusus already?” Eridan taunts, before hightailing it back up the path to Vriska’s hive with a furious pirate girl on his heels. Terezi takes off after them with a shriek of delight, with Feferi begging them not to start a fight and Aradia waving back at you as she pelts sand at the back of Eridan’s head. 

“Good god,” you mutter. 

“Love those assholes,” Micah says, every word laced with affection. They hold out their hand, and with a lot less caution than you used to, you take it. 

In the blink of an eye, the both of you are outside Dave’s apartment building with the sun going down behind the skyscrapers in the west. It’s hot as fuck, even for you, and teleporting never fails to make you a little dizzy. 

You look up and down the alleyway. Cool, no other humans around. 

Taking a running start, you kick off the dumpster underneath the fire escape and grab on to the last rung of the rusty ladder. You pull yourself up with a grunt and start hiking on up to the top floor, concentrating on the horizon to calm down your tilting vision. A  _ bang _ of boot against metal lets you know Micah is right behind you. 

“Why don’t you just teleport up?” you ask. 

“Do you want me to take you up?”

“No. It makes me dizzy.”

“Sorry, dude.” They yank off their hoodie with a huff. “I need the exercise.”

“Don’t let Equius hear you say anything like that. For my wriggling day last sweep he gave me an exercise regime and video-called me to personally ensure that I was doing it. It was fucking terrible. Every time I see a stretching mat my ass clenches up so hard I taste shit.”

“... Do you think he’ll come around?” they ask. 

You snort. “Who knows. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but… he’s pretty set in his ways about the authority of the Empire and the hemospectrum. If Nepeta can’t get through to him, nobody can.”

“Eridan decided he wants to change. So did Vriska.”

You bite your tongue before you can tell Micah that they unwittingly became the lusus-figure of those two jackasses the second they waltzed into their lives. “Yeah, well. Equius is a whole other hoofbeast, pun intended.”

By the time you reach the top level, your thighs are burning, you’re out of breath, and Micah has to brace themselves on their knees while sucking in air like an upright mechanical cleaning device. The usually pale skin is flushed red, and they’re making absolutely no attempt to cover themselves. 

_ All humans have red blood, dumbass. Get over yourself. _ “How come you can go for three hours straight on  _ Just Dance _ but get winded going up a few flights of stairs?”

“Man, shut up. You’re breathing heavy, too,” they wheeze. 

“Barely.” You pull out your palmhusk and shoot a quick text to Dave, telling him to check the fire escape. Your palmhusk is barely back inside your sweatpants pocket before the window you and Micah are under slides open.

A messy head of blonde hair pokes out, and your gastric tract does a flip when a smirk lifts up the corners of Dave’s mouth. “Two aliens, chillin’ on my fire escape, five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.”

“I regret ever letting you in on the incredible gift that awaits this world that is Vine,” Micah sighs. “All those iconic seven-second videos, all those memes that have yet to define Gen Z as a culture… and some greasy millennial Texas kid gets the first crack at it?”

“Micah. Mickey. Mickaroonie. Gen Z was born at the start of 1995. I was born in 1996. I barely made it, but I made it. Slipped right in there like the intruder through Annie’s window, RIP Michael Jackson. Vine is my birthright, same as yours.”

“It  _ will _ be your birthright.”

“What the fuck is a Vine?” you demand. Stupid humans and their stupid human culture. You still have difficulty believing that their planet is divided up into thousands of different sectors, each with their own laws and languages and governments. How come they just can’t pick one thing and go with it? 

“Hush up and get inside, Karkles, both of you are letting all the cold air out,” Dave drawls, backing away from the window so you and Micah can hop in. 

You do so and almost immediately eat shit when you land on a pile of comic books that slip out from underneath your feet. “Fuck!”

“Keep it down, bro, the walls are thin.” Dave chucks an empty juice bottle into the trash can across the room. “Thin as a rin-tin-tin, gotta keep on silencin’, can’t let the haters in from the world that keeps on burnin’--”

“If you shut up we’ll tell you about the rebellion that’s happening on Alternia. Past Alternia, that is,” you offer. 

That gets his attention. He turns to you, brows drawing tightly together. “A revolution? On your hellhole of a planet? Isn’t that, I dunno,  _ really _ frickin’ risky? You’re not in danger, are you?”   
  


“Not in  _ my _ time period, dummy,” you say, crossing your arms to block out the surge of warmth inside of you that has nothing to do with the Texas heat.  _ He cares about your safety. _ “It’s like, ten sweeps ago? Fifteen? I dunno, Micah’s the one who’s actually in it.”

“Yeah… I don’t know, either. Alternian measurements of time are confusing. But yeah. Me and a bunch of my friends are gonna overthrow the government,” Micah explains. 

“Hell yeah, stick it to the man. But, like, be careful.”

“I will. Time shenanigans are kind of my thing.”

“Can we get food now?” you demand. 

“Hell yeah we can.” Dave glances behind him, but there’s nobody there. “Yeah… let’s see, Bro’s not gonna be back until Saturday, so we’re good.”

Micah glances over at the calendar on the wall and frowns. It’s Tuesday. You’re not sure what Tuesday is in relation to Saturday, but they don’t seem happy about it. 

The three of you end up sneaking around downtown Houston until you locate a McDonald’s. It’s weird, how much safer you feel on Earth in comparison to Alternia. These aren’t your people, and this isn’t your planet, and yet when a group of teenagers pass under the tree you and Micah hide in while Dave goes inside to order you don’t even flinch. It helps that the sun has gone down and you know that humans can’t see in the dark. 

“So…” they say, eyeing you thoughtfully. “Do you want me to leave you guys alone? You know, city lights, fast food, two teenagers sitting together under the stars…”

_ FUCK.  _ You slap at them with a furious hiss. “No! I-- what,  _ no! _ Who told you? Was it Sollux? It was fucking Sollux.”

“It wasn’t Sollux. You’re pretty obvious, dude,” they remark. 

You scrub your face with your hands. “I… he’s just so great, which is stupid because he pisses me off, and he’s an alien, and it’s just  _ impossible. _ A-And he’s human-heterosexual!”

“Hey. Look at me.”

You look at them. 

They smile at you, and your racing bloodpusher calms as you remember that this person is one of the few you can trust with your life. “No relationship is ever easy. You know this. But what you don’t know is that people  _ always _ find ways to come together. My moirail is an oliveblood assassin, and she’s easily one of the top three things that’s ever happened to me.”

You can’t help it: you smile a little. “What are the other two things?”

“Rice bowls at Chipotle. Meeting you guys.”

“You’re a sappy fuck,” you tell them, even as you snort into the crook of your elbow. 

“I sure am, hotshot. Oh, hey, here’s Dave--”

“--eeeeeEEEEEE here it is! Help me up,” a familiar voice announces. You look over the branch you’re stretched out on and reach down to help Dave up while Micah grabs the bags of food from him. His palm is just as warm and sweaty as yours, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Once everybody is settled in and munching away on shitty, delicious human food you break out the big guns. “Micah has a moirail.”

“Which one is that?”

“They have a girlfriend. Ew, can’t believe I’m resorting to highblood slang.”

That gets his attention. “Oh, real shit? Is she hot?”

“Yes, Dave. She is hot.”

“What’s she like?”

“Kind. Shredded as all hell. Loves sappy romance novels. Lowkey murders people for a living. Gets embarrassed easily. Like, I’ll say something like ‘I’m gonna shooshpap the anxiety right out of your soul, honey-bunches’ and she absolutely  _ loses _ her goddamn mind--”

You shriek and slam your hands over your ears, trying to not blush and give yourself away. “No, no,  _ noooooooooo,  _ Micah I’m under nine sweeps old please-!”

“I don’t get it! Why is talking about feelings so sexy?” they yell, throwing their hands up while Dave loses his mind. “Damn! I touched my friend’s cheek the other night ‘cause he was messed up about my ribs being broken and he just about exploded.”

“Slut,” you wheeze. 

“Your ribs are broken?” Dave stops laughing and starts poking at the other human. “What? Are you okay? How did you even climb this tree?”

“I’m fine now, buddy, Alternian medical tech is pretty great,” they assure him, ruffling his hair as he swats at them. 

“Wack. One time I was in the ER ‘cause I needed stitches and the nurse didn’t even numb me up, she just frickin’ went for it. Big-ass needle, big-ass thread, screaming six-year-old, I think I scared the whole McFrickin’ clinic half to death--”

You want to hear everything about Dave’s bravery in the face of a mediculler, but before you can ask for more details a beam of bright light hits Micah right in the face, making them reel back with an arm thrown over their face. 

“What are you kids doing up there, huh?” a deep voice calls. 

You look down and almost shit yourself. 

Underneath the tree are four fully-grown adult males, all big and with guns strapped to their belts (seriously, why the fuck do humans run around with so many weapons on them when they’re so stupid?) and wearing blue uniforms. 

Oh,  _ shit. _ Dave told you to never trust the ones with the blue uniforms. 

“We’re eating McDonald’s in a tree, officer,” Micah explains cheerfully.

“Can I ask why?” The one in the front glares up at you. You shrink back into the foliage as much as you can. Dave grabs your hand, squeezing tightly, and you squeeze back. 

“Why not?”

“Can I see some I.D?”

“No. We’re not breaking any laws. This is public property.”

You stare in disbelief as Micah pulls out a fry and munches on it without a care in the world. Were they really not afraid? Did humans just… not fear their authority figures? 

_ They can teleport. Of course they’re not afraid, _ you remind yourself. 

“How many of you are up there?” another one asks. 

“Three.”

“Are any of you armed?”

“No, sir.”

“Can you come down, please?”

“No, thanks. We’re fine where we are.”

“You guys want a cheeseburger? The lady who took our order gave me an extra,” Dave offers. “It’s got onions, though. Onions are nasty.”

The one farthest to the left says something into his walkie-talkie. Micah grins. 

You know that grin. “What are you--”

“Hey, officers! Wanna see something cool?” they yell. “Watch  _ this!” _

They push off the branch they’re leaning on and lunge towards you and Dave. You barely have time to yelp before they’re grabbing your arm and zapping you guys out of there. 

Delighted peals of laughter fills the whole apartment as you land face-first into Dave’s bed. You spit out a dirty sock that somehow ended up in your mouth and shove them off the end of the mattress, but you’re laughing too. You’ve never seen anything like that. 

Dave looks over at you, gorgeous red eyes twinkling behind his shades and a big smile lighting up his respiteblock, and just for a moment, everything is perfect. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over five-hundred comments and five-thousand reads?? You guys are absolutely AMAZING. I cannot believe how much this blew up. I have a blog on Tumblr now for this fic (the name is still Riverbound) and I've uploaded most of the chapters there, but what else would you guys want to see on that blog? I'm thinking about putting some of my head canons for world building on there. What the people want I will do my best to give!


	22. Interlude: Of All The Possibilities

Your name is MICAH and the piercing rays of a Texas sunrise is the first thing you see upon waking up in the morning. 

A low groan escapes you as your eyeballs nearly shrivel up in their sockets. You roll over on the futon Dave let you crash on and shove your face into the pillows, trying to collect your thoughts. McDonald’s? Check. Fuck with the Houston Police Department? Check. Third wheel for two idiot teenagers? Check. 

You look back to see Dave and Karkat curled up on the bed together, spooning aggressively with Dave’s front to Karkat’s back. Dang, you need a new phone, because _ that _ is one-hundred-percent wallpaper material. 

In these moments, despite all you’ve been through, when everything is okay and nobody is injured or scared or needs help… it’s worth it. 

You let yourself be content for a few more minutes before you start mentally mapping out a plan for the day. If you were to be a responsible person, you’d drop Karkat back off on Alternia and go see Vriska to see if there’s anything you can do to help with whatever mission she has planned next, as well as see if she knows anything else about the failed rebellion of the past. Then, you’d go home and take it from there. 

Dave mumbles something in his sleep and cuddles closer to Karkat. Something in your chest softens, and you decide that for now, Alternia can wait. 

Also, you  _ really _ need to pee. 

The next couple of hours are a little awkward, because when the boys wake up they immediately forge an unspoken agreement to not speak of the Forbidden Sleepy Snuggles, resulting in them not speaking to each other except when necessary and therefore only talking to you. Dave makes you a bomb-ass omelette, though. 

“So, what do you guys wanna do? We could go see John, or Rose, or Jade…” you offer, stirring your orange juice with your fork. “What if we just went to Home Depot and grabbed as many plants as possible and brought them to Jade? Seriously, that girl has plants for  _ days--” _

“Can we go to Alternia?” Dave asks. 

Karkat turns to stare at him as if he grew another head, and you know your own face is doing the same thing. “I beg your frick-fracking pardon?”

“You. Me. Karkitty. Alternia,” Dave says slowly, as if explaining something to a toddler. “Come on, dude. There’s a whole other world out there with aliens and shit and you’re looking at me like I suggested we go slap babies? Just absolutely rock the shit out of some helpless infants? Did all that teleporting mess up your brain goop--”

_ “Absolutely not,” _ you and Karkat explode at the same time. 

“Dave, Alternia is nothing like Earth. If you so much as look at the wrong person funny, you’re dead! If the wrong person looks at you funny,  _ you’re  _ dead! You’re a soft squishy human with no troll street smarts and bright pale ass skin that  _ Terezi  _ could see from across the continent!” Karkat yells. 

“Karkat’s right, buddy. There’s a good reason Bec or I have never brought you or the others over to Alternia,” you tell him sternly. “I have no doubt that you’re able to take care of yourself, but that place… there’s just no second chances.”

Dave doesn’t seem fazed. “You’ve survived there for how long now?”

_ If only you knew, kid. _ “That’s different. I was able to make a lot of friends who were willing to help me.”

“All the other trolls are my friends.”

“And all of you are still thirteen-year-olds. Nice try.”

“Ugh. Party pooper.” Dave glowers at you from underneath his shades, and you channel your inner Bronya to give him your best Mom Glare. 

However, you definitely do not want to be known as a party pooper, so you decide on a compromise. “I can’t take you to Alternia. But I could take you to the future-slash-alternate-dimension.”

Both boys’ eyes lock on you with renewed interest. 

You smile. “Dave, do you want to meet your mother?”

<>

Your name is ROXY LALONDE and this being-sober thing a lot harder than you thought it was going to be. 

You’re shaky, sweaty, and nauseous as all hell, which just isn’t fair! Because you’re not even hungover! You haven’t had anything to drink in two days and already you feel like you’re losing your mind. Nightmares are making sleep impossible. When’s the last time you even took a nap?

_ I’m not giving up. _

Yeah, you’re curled up on your bedroom floor with Mutie wishing for the umpteenth time you were dead, but you need to do this. For Jane, and Jake, and Dirk, and  _ Micah, _ who you _ know _ isn’t your mom but does everything a mom does and cares about you and just wants you to be okay. 

It’s been a few weeks since they’ve last stopped by, and you’d be lying if you said that you aren’t worried. But they can take care of themselves, and they can come visit whenever they feel like it, not whenever  _ you _ feel like it--

“Roxy?”

Aw, shit. Here come the hallucinations. 

“Roxy! You home?”

Mutie’s ears prick up. It’s a few seconds before you register that he wouldn’t be able to hear any hallucinations of yours. 

You’re pushing yourself to your feet before your brain can catch up, almost falling on your bed when your vision tilts dangerously. You stumble out of the door, down the hallway, and just barely manage to stop your clumsy ass in time to not fall down the stairs when you see Micah standing in the doorway. 

There’s two other people with them, but you don’t bring yourself to care until after you’ve yeeted yourself down the stairs and into their open arms. 

“Hey, you,” they chuckle, hugging you back as you bury your face into the crook of their neck. You kind of have to lean over ‘cause they’re super tiny, but it’s totally worth it. “How have you been?”

“Good,” you say, because you really don’t wanna tell them the truth. 

“Are you sure?” They lean back to press a hand to your forehead, looking a little concerned. “You’re kinda… sweaty.”

“Fever,” you blurt out. 

“Oh, fuck, we’re gonna get one of your human sicknesses and die,” a gravelly voice hisses, only to cut off with a squeak as Micah kicks out a leg and nails somebody else behind the kneecap. 

You look over to see a… blonde dude. And a gray dude. 

“More aliens?” You gasp, delighted through your nausea. 

“Hey, don’t breathe on me!” 

“Shut up, Karkat,” the blonde dude says. He looks like a normal human, but so does Micah and they’re not from this Earth, so you never know. He’s wearing shades but you get the impression that he’s definitely looking at you. “Um, hi. I’m Dave.”

“Hi,” you say. Something about him is kind of familiar, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. 

Micah sighs. “Roxy. This is your son from another reality. I thought you two should get the chance to meet.”

_ My son? _ You look back at Dave, and you finally see the resemblance. It’s like somebody hit copy/paste with your face on this kid’s body. 

“Holy shit,” you say, all of your pain going away in an instant. You have a son… in another reality. How cool is that? 

“Yeah. What’s good,” Dave says, looking a little shy. 

You open your mouth, fully planning on offering all of them a drink before you remember yourself. “Uh, wanna go, uh… skateboarding?”

He lights up, and you lead the way out of the house as Micah and Karkat discuss alien politics. Life kind of sucks right now, but at least you have people with you to help lighten the load, and at least you’re not dead. 

<>

Your name is JANE CROCKER and there is shattered glass all over your living room floor. The carpet has burn marks on it. Smoke is billowing out of a strange hoverboard-looking contraption that landed neatly under your father’s football game chair, and most importantly, there’s a banged-up teenage boy who just collapsed in a heap on your couch. 

_ How? _ you want to ask, but what comes out of your mouth is “Dirk Strider there better be a  _ damn good _ explanation for this I swear to  _ God.” _

Dirk falls off the couch and hits the floor with a wheeze. 

You delicately pick your way over to him, grab him from underneath the arms, and drag him out to the kitchen to get the tweezers. There’s bits of glass in the cuts on his elbows and you don’t want them getting infected. 

“Sorry ‘bout the window. Poor bitch just couldn’t get outta the way in time. Tried to give it the ol’ heads up before the beat down, but it just couldn’t handle me. Wow, my arms kinda hurt,” Dirk grunts. 

“That’s because you landed on some glass,” you explain patiently. 

“Dammit.”

“Mm-hm. C’mere, lemme see those elbows.”

He awkwardly bends out an arm for you as you fish a pair of tweezers out of a draw. You usually use this pair for cooking, but they’re clean and you don’t want to have to drag Dirk all the way upstairs to your bathroom, so they’ll just have to do. He trembles ever so slightly as you start removing little bits of glass from the cuts. . 

_ This is the first time he’s ever touched another person besides-- _

“So, I know this is sudden, but do you wanna go on a roadtrip with me?” he asks. 

You stare up at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“You. Me. Roxy. Jake. Roadtrip through time and space.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We have to go help Micah change the universe.”

“I-- they’re doing what now?” you stutter, and he winces as you accidentally pull out a piece of glass too hard. “Sorry!”

“You’re good. You’re good. Micah is-- okay,  _ ow, _ they’re modifying the timeline. They’re helping Alternia win a revolution, and it’s going to change  _ everything, _ and we gotta go help them so they can do that and not cause a giant ripple effect that fucks everything up, because this is all happening hundreds of years in the past,” Dirk explains. He doesn’t have his goofy anime sunglasses on, and his brilliant amber eyes are piercing a hole straight through your skull. “Of course they’d never fuck everything up, because, y’know, they can literally manipulate space-time and the narrative in which we are all currently existing in. But we still need to go help them. They can’t do it alone.”

You do your best to try and process all of that. “What you’re saying is… you want me to drop everything, run away with you and our other friends who we’ve never even met face-to-face, and engage in shenanigans so vast and complicated I could never even begin to understand them without a three-hour-long powerpoint?”

“... Yes.”

“Got it. Once I finish your other elbow I’ll go get my things.”

In all the years you’ve known him, you’ve never truly seen him smile until this moment. “Jane, you are one badass broad.”

“And don’t you ever forget it, Strider,” you order, before yanking out the last glass shard and making him squeal like a baby. 


	23. Of Reunions, Unhappy

Your name is JAKE ENGLISH and, ah… 

You are currently in a bit of a conundrum. 

Not that you are unused to such harrying events! It’s just that, well. This one is definitely the biggest one you’ve ever had to endure in all of your sixteen years of life. You’ve faced down dangerous beasts that would have easily brought down a lesser man, navigated the harshest parts of the jungle and returned with only a few mosquito bites, conquered many a riptide out in the ocean and made it back to shore none the worse for wear. 

You almost lose your footing as you scurry along the rope bridge you made (rather shoddily, if you were being honest) when you were eleven, weighed down by your backpack carrying only your most precious valuables. The tip of your right trainer is barely on solid ground when, once again, the land buckles like all of hell is rising. With a grunt of exertion, you let yourself fall forward just as the tethers holding the bridge to its posts snap. 

“Oh,  _ bullocks-!” _

The post closest to you nearly nails you upside the head before being yanked down into the gully. You scramble to your feet, desperately trying to stay upright. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done in your current situation. 

You see, the volcano you’ve lived in the shadow of all your life has just become active. 

_ Very _ active. 

_ Don’t look back, English. Don’t you bloody dare! _ __   
  


You’re spared the choice as several beasts leap past you, paying you no mind as they make a mad dash towards the beach. Grateful that at least  _ some _ people know where they’re heading, you sprint after them. 

Up ahead, the jungle begins to thin out as the soil changes from dirt to sand. You clear a bush in a sound bound as another fit seizes the land. 

And freeze in absolute terror at what you see before you. 

The ocean is… retreating. There’s no other words for it. Something your grandmother once told you rings around the inside of your skull. 

_ “When the ocean goes missing, don’t look for it!” _

“Well, isn’t this just grand?” you wheeze. You can’t see the tsunami yet, but you know it won’t be long now. 

Alright, so you have two choices: you can take your chances with the volcano, or you can brave the sea. Both have their pros and cons. Both could kill you within the next couple of minutes. You are on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and, like you have always been, you are completely and utterly alone. Your phone is in your backpack, and you want to text your friends one last time to tell them that you love them, you always have and you always will, but that quickly turns out to be unnecessary. 

“Jake!”

You turn and see what looks like a hole appearing out of thin air, as if some celestial being took a pair of scissors and just… cut out a little piece of space. Reaching out to you from the tear is a pair of familiar figures. 

_ “Jake! _ Come on!” Dirk shouts. 

“Well, I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?” you ask nobody in particular, but since you’re about to die anyways you lunge for him, and then you’re falling through an endless void. 

<>

Your name is DIRK STRIDER and you’ll be taking over the narration for now. Thanks. Sorry, Jake, but there’s some things you gotta do. 

You can practically  _ feel _ the author’s annoyance as you get spit out into some sort of desert wasteland, but you can’t really bring yourself to care at the moment. Sure, you like the bitch, but all she’s done so far is write about the trolls and the revolution they’ve got going on. Maybe you’re an attention whore, but you just  _ gotta _ have some time in the spotlight.

Hey. You know what you’re doing, alright? At least you’re not switching to first-person POV. That would be a real dick move. 

Anyways. 

You, Jake, and Jane all eat shit as your transportalizer absolutely fucking yeets the three of you right into the side of a sand dune. This is because you know the jackass behind the keyboard likes to make life hard for the assholes in her story, and you are most definitely an asshole. 

Thankfully, you manage to catch your hoverboard before it can go flying off to some unknown part of the desert, and roll to a stop at the bottom of the dune. You stare up at the sky as Jane skids on past you with a squeal, just thinking about your life choices. 

Making a transportalizer that you could take with you through time and space had been tricky, but all that hard work had paid off when you got your first taste of time travel. The ability to leave, to finally go  _ be _ with other people, all at your fingertips. Granted, it’s not like anything on Micah’s level, but you’re still pretty proud of figuring all this shit out. You’ll ask them more about how they teleport once you get to the other reality. 

A body lands next to yours with a squeak, and you look over to see Jake curling up on himself while taking short, frantic breaths. 

“Yo,” you say. 

Striking green eyes lock on yours, and  _ wow, _ they’re even more amazing to look at in person.  _ “Dirk. _ How in the-?”

“There is sand in my  _ ass!” _ you hear Jane shriek. 

“So, I accidentally figured out time travel,” you begin, forcing yourself to stop thinking with your dick. “Which is awesome, because time correlates directly with space, so if you have control over one you basically have control over both. Basically, we’re on our way to go see our mutual teleporting sort-of-alien-friend once we pick up Roxy, because they’re going to need our help with epic shenanigans.”

“H-Help with what, exactly?” he splutters. 

“Overthrowing a tyrannical regime on a planet called Alternia. My dream self figured some shit out the other day, and I had literally nothing better to do, so.”

Jake considers this, and then nods. “Well, old chap, I must say your timing was impeccable. The volcano I’ve lived beside all my life decided to blow just this morning.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” you tell him. 

A splash has you turning around to see where the hell the water is coming from, only to see Jane stomping around in a giant pool, her skirt hitched up to her thighs and her shoes discarded on the shore. She’s grinning like a little kid who just discovered a puddle after a rainstorm. 

“What are you doing?” you call over. 

Jane beams up at you. “My Dad never let me go out as I was growing up! I never got to learn how to swim or anything!”

Upon inspecting the landscape, you see that what you thought was a desert is in fact, covered in bodies of water ranging from your average suburban backyard pool to lakes that stretch out to the horizon. They perfectly reflect the blue sky and white puffy clouds, like nature just decided to plop down a bunch of mirrors in the Sahara.

“You never learned how to swim?” Jake asked in disbelief. “Hold it right there! I’m coming on down, and nothing will dare get in my way!”

He launches himself to his feet with the ease of somebody who grew up running around a dangerous jungle and charges on down to the pool. Jane falls back with a yell of delight as he comes crashing in and dives underneath the surface. 

“Guys,” you protest, but they’re already shoving each other around in the water and laughing like it’s the best shit since crack cocaine. “Come on, y’all. Let’s stop the horsing around, we’ve got places to be, okay?”

Great, you’re turning into Micah. 

Not like that’s a bad thing, because Micah is the  _ best; _ they give you hugs and listen to everything you have to say about anything and think your swords are super cool, but they’ve got some serious Mom energy going on and you aren’t about that particular aesthetic. 

“Dirk! We’re finally all _ meeting _ each other! Come hang out with us,” Jane pleads. 

“Roxy won’t mind waiting for just a little while longer,” Jake adds. 

You cross your arms and channel some of that Mom energy, but it doesn’t work, because Jane blows a raspberry at you and Jake just smirks. 

Upon checking the transportalizer you find that it’s going to be about another hour before it’ll be ready to go again. You hesitate, sigh, and shuck off your backpack and yank off your sneakers before running on down to join your friends. 

“FOR NARNIA!” Jake yells. You yell back at him and try and dunk him underwater, but the bastard is surprisingly slippery. Jane comes up on your left side to try and get your feet out from underneath you. You’re impressed at their impromptu battle strategy, but when it comes to fighting there is none better than Dirk motherfucking Strider, and both of these assholes are about to learn that the hard way. 

Grabbing Jane by the waist, you lift her high over her head and fling her to the other side of the pool. Her screaming is music to your ears. Jake forces you back a few steps, because he’s actually pretty damn strong, so you let him shove you around a bit while you come up with the rest of your plan. 

Just as he starts to smile, clearly thinking he’s about to win, you crouch and leap up out of the water to take him down. 

The water cuts off his indignant squawk, and you wave down at him from above the surface just as Jane explodes to her feet behind you and yanks you away. 

“Good use of your upper body strength,” you praise, flipping around to face her. “Show me a good punch.”

She swings at your face and you catch it easily, but there’s a lot of force behind it, enough to make your palm sting. Jane’s a big girl, and you’re already dying to teach her how to  _ really _ fight. 

“How’s that?” she asks, a bit out of breath. 

“Not bad.” You grin at her and dodge Jake as he comes back for seconds. “Not enough to slow me down, though.”

“You rascal!”

You have no idea what to make of all this-- the laughter of your friends, the sensation of actually touching other people, so you shove Jake away and bound over to Jane to throw wet sand at her. 

Then you guys just… sit together. 

“I still have sand in my ass,” Jane announces as an icebreaker. 

“Once we get to Roxy’s you can nag her into letting you use her shower,” you promise. “Otherwise we’ll just spray each other down outside like stray dogs.”

Jake nods in agreement. “That reminds me… Dirk? My dearest compatriot of the anime persuasion? Old chum?”

You look over at him over your shades. “Yes, babydoll?”

His face goes red, much to your delight. “How in Christ’s left sandal did you figure out how to build a contraption that lets you travel through time and space?”

“Good question. The answer is that my dream self met this guy on Derse and he gave me some shit. He also said that Micah needs help with the Alternian revolution. I woke up with that shit in my hands. Then I built the shit.”

Jake and Jane both stare at you. 

“He was an alien. Also he was pretty weird,” you offer. 

“Dirk, we gotta talk about stranger danger sometime,” Jane says dryly. 

You roll your eyes. “He looked like some fishy ass  _ Harry Potter _ bastard. I think I would have been fine.”

“Sure.”

“Also, when and where are we?” Jake asks. 

You check the transportalizer, which you designed to look sort of like a watch, except much more durable and waterproof. “We are in… Saudi Arabia, 2375. It’ll be about fifty more minutes before we can jump again.”

Jane frowns. “Do you think that once we save Alternia, it’ll save Earth, too?”

“I think so,” Jake says. 

You shake your head. “Yeah… about that. I dunno how to break this to you guys all easy-peezy, but, ah… Micah’s universe and our universe ain’t the same bitch.”

Their heads snap around towards you. 

“And how do you know that?” Jane demands. 

“Because Micah told me,” you huff. “Look. If we were all in the same universe… reality, whatever, I’d just be able to send us back to wherever they are. But it’s not gonna be that easy.”

Jane doesn’t meet your eyes, and you know she’s disappointed that all of this mess isn’t going to be enough to save her twenty-first century world, and most importantly, her dad. You want to promise her that it’ll all work out, but you know that’s a damn lie, and you don’t like lying to the people you care about. It’s just not who you are. 

“We’ll figure it out as we go,” Jake promises. 

_ I don’t think optimism is gonna be enough to save a whole frickin’ universe, buddy, but okay,  _ you think, but you keep your trap shut so you don’t piss anybody off.

The next forty-five minutes are spent halfheartedly splashing water at each other until the transportalizer beeps, signifying that it’s ready for more action. You calibrate it, punch in the year 2424, and patiently wait for its systems to load. 

“I can’t believe you figured out honest-to-God  _ time travel, _ Strider,” Jane finally says. 

“That’s what happens when you’re a bad bitch like me, Crocker,” you shoot back. “Jake, tell her I’m a bad bitch.”

“He is a bad bitch,” he agrees. 

“Thank you. Ready?”

“Yeah!”

You flip the switch and close your eyes to avoid vertigo as the water-filled desert drops out from underneath your feet. As soon as it begins it ends, and you open your eyes to see Jane fall back on her butt and Jake stumble. 

“Oh, drat,” Jane pouts before pushing herself back to her feet. 

Jake snickers. “How’s the sand in your ass?”

“Still there, English! Still there.”

You look around and are delighted to see the ruins of the once-great New York City. Roxy lives in New York City. 

_ We made it.  _

“I texted her but she’s not responding,” Jake says as he shoves his phone back into his pocket. Why does he wear shorts that barely cover his ass? If it were you that grew up in a jungle with lots of scratchy plants you’d at least be wearing cargo pants all of the time. He does have really nice thighs, though, you aren’t gonna lie. And a nice ass. Hnng. “Does anybody even have her address? She must be around here somewhere, but…”

You force your head out of the gutter so that you can actually be productive. “No need, I’ll just track her phone.”

“You can do that?” Jane asks, raising a brow. 

“Now I can.” All you have to do is use your phone to scan for any electronic signals in the area, and boom, there she is. “Two blocks forward, three to the right.”

The three of you set off down the street, with you in the lead and Jane and Jake ambling along beside you. 

Jane’s the first one to address the elephant in the room. “Goodness, what are we even going to say to Roxy? ‘Surprise! We’re here!’” 

“How about a simple ‘Hello! It’s so nice to finally meet you in person!’” Jake suggests. “Just a bunch of humans, human-ing it up as humans should!”

There’s a long pause in the conversation, and you sigh. “Fuck, we’re all so bad at this. I wish Micah was here.”

“Micah would make us all popcorn, have everybody sit in a circle in Roxy’s living room and play twenty questions, and then we’d all just go for a walk together and talk about anything and everything,” Jane chuckles. 

“Then that’s what we’ll do!” Jake decides cheerfully. 

“New game of the year: What Would Micah Do?” 

“Once we see them again I shall tell them that you gave me a wedgie-!”

You begin tuning them out after that, not because you’re not interested in whatever they have to say but because something is  _ wrong. _ It’s the same feeling you got after the Weird Fishy Harry Potter guy gave you the parts for the transportalizer. You need to do something, and you need to do it now. 

_ Goddamn narrative forces fucking up my day. _ “Something’s up.”

Jake speeds up to walk alongside you. “What is it?”

“I dunno, but we need to get to Roxy.”

You don’t wait for his response and break into a run. Jane yells something after you, but you don’t hear it. Following the beacon on your phone, you race down the street, turn the corner, and find yourself in front of a huge complex. Roxy’s house was somewhere in there, and all you have to go off of is one measly cell phone signal. 

You hop the fence surrounding the buildings and head on in. The place is pretty big, so it’s another ten minutes of frantic searching before you’re able to narrow in on Roxy’s location. 

You know you’ve found what you’re looking for after you run up like six flights of stairs and come across a startlingly normal-looking door amidst the sleek industrial corridors. 

“Roxy!” you shout, banging on the door. “Roxy! It’s me, Dirk! Open the hell up!”

Nobody answers. 

“Alright, fuck it,” you say to nobody in particular, and you back up, brace yourself, and charge. 

The door falls back in one neat piece, except the hinges which were ripped clean off the frame. You leap over it and look around for signs of life. 

“Rraow?” 

Mutie, Roxy’s four-eyed cat which always kind of creeped you out except you never told her out loud because cats are sick and that’s rude, looks down at you from the top of the stairs. “Rraow!”

“Where is she?” you demand. 

Mutie caterwauls deep in his throat and darts off down the hallway. You fly up the stairs and find him standing in front of the bathroom. 

She’s slumped over herself in the bathtub, tawny skin glistening with sweat, and even when you rush over to her and lift up her head she doesn’t respond. For an awful moment you think she’s dead. For another, you think she took her own life. 

You almost pass out when you feel her breath against your hand.  _ She’s alive.  _

“What the fuck did you do, Lalonde?” you say, picking her up and carrying her downstairs. You need space to work. “I swear, once you wake up I’m beating your ass--”

“Dirk!”

“In here!” you yell back. 

Jake and Jane rush in just as you lay her out on the living room carpet. They both stop dead at the sight. You don’t blame them. 

Jane’s hands fly up to cover her mouth. “Is she-?”

“No. Go get me a cold damp washcloth from the kitchen. She’s got the sweats.”

Jake darts off to get you a washcloth, and Jane stumbles over to sit down next to Roxy’s unconscious self. 

“She said she wants to quit now,” she tells you as Jake returns from the kitchen. 

You look up at her. “What?”

“She wants to quit drinking.”

In a flash, you finally understand. “Alcohol withdrawal. Oh,  _ shit. _ Oh, Roxy, you can’t just go do something like that!”

“I didn’t think she could actually do it. Oh, no, no, I’m such a horrible friend, I didn’t even think…” Jane starts to cry. 

You want to tell her it’s not her fault, because even you had no idea addiction could be like this, but then Roxy bolts dead upright with a shriek. Jake shrieks back in response and falls back on the couch, almost taking the coffee table with him. 

“Mom! Oh, hey, you’re not Mom,” she tells a wide-eyed Jane. 

“Roxy?” You grab her shoulder and turn her to face you, but she’s already passing out again. Everything is silent except for Jane’s silent sobbing. 

For the first time in your life, you feel completely helpless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... pls don't kill me for this owo


	24. Of Blackrom(?) and Bad Decisions

Your name is MICAH and tonight is the night you have to save some of your friends from kicking the bucket. Unfortunately, you can’t tell any of them this, because 1) it might jinx the whole operation and 2) “kicking the bucket” has an entirely different meaning on Alternia. 

Vriska wouldn’t tell you who was going to die, only that to be ready to get your friends and dip the second drones showed up. So here you were, in a new pair of skinny jeans and one of Polypa’s old tank tops, marching up the steps to Elwurd’s place while your sternum vibrated by the sheer force of the bass that threatened to blow out the windows with every beat of the music. 

You take a few deep breaths to steady yourself before you knock. The kids have all been dropped off at their respective homes. You’ve showered, eaten, and peed. Everybody is currently safe. 

_ For now.  _

Inside Elwurd’s hive, you hear somebody shriek in either terror or delight. The sound is immediately followed by a loud BANG. A bunch of people burst out laughing, and you welcome the distraction by rapping three times on the door. 

You almost fall right off the steps when none other than Chixie Roixmr opens the door and gasps, slapping a hand over her open mouth. 

“Chixie!”

_ “Micah!”  _ This time you really do fall when she launches herself into your arms. The two of you land in a heap in the grass, with you laughing and Chixie on the verge of tears as she squeezes the ever-loving shit out of you. 

“Hey, dude, I missed you too,” you sigh, letting her smush her cheek against yours as she purrs like a motorcycle. “How’s it been?”

Chixie hops off you, and dang, she’s gotten bigger since you last saw her. Why the  _ fuck _ is everybody taller than you? “I sold my first album! But I really missed you, though. Elwurd told me everything about what happened to you. I’m so sorry, Micah.”

“Hey, I’m here now.” You let her pull you to your feet and give you another hug. Maybe tonight was going to be crazy, but you’d be damned if you weren’t going to have some fun while you’re at it. 

She pulls you back up the stairs and into Elwurd’s hive, shoves a drink into your hand, and leads you to the kitchen where a bunch of other people you know are hanging out. 

Amongst them are the cerulean girls, and you’re surprised but happy to see Chixie slink over to Remele to press against her side; the two are obviously in a relationship together. Diemen is chatting it up with Cirava, who’s already so high they have to stare at you for a full two minutes before they remember who you are. They immediately rush over to give you a hug when they do, however, so no hard feelings there. 

For the first hour or so, everything is  _ fantastic. _ You tear it up on the dance floor, you do a couple of shots with Remele, you stomp on the foot of some bastard who tries to grab Chixie’s ass and send him running. Unfortunately, Elwurd doesn’t have a pool, otherwise you’d pull out your favorite party trick and jump in to impress the crowd; the majority of landdwelling trolls don’t know how to swim, much less hold their breath for a minute and a half. You do, however, impress a couple of teals by showing them the veins in your wrist. Trolls seem to have an unusual fascination with your blood being red but your veins being blue. 

You’re passing through one of the backrooms on the way back from relieving yourself when a strong hand pulls you back on to a sofa. 

Lanque smirks down at you, and you beam back at him and bump your head against his shoulder. With wild parties came Lanque Bombyx, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“My conversation partner ditched me to go do lines in the basement. People only want one thing and it’s disgusting,” he complains dramatically. 

You roll your eyes. “Dude. Like you haven’t done the same.”

“Yes, but I’m a hypocrite, and I’m still too sober to not be bored.”

“Does the gentleman want some of that radioactive dog piss Elwurd calls jungle juice? I had a sip earlier and damn near teleported to the astral realm.”

“Already had a couple of glasses earlier. Didn’t even get tipsy.”

You shake your head. “You amaze me, but I really think you gotta take a tolerance break.”

“Probably.” He lets his head fall back, the curve of his horns scraping against the wallpaper. The arch of his neck shines blue in the lights that have been strung up along the edges of the ceiling. You take a moment to admire the view. 

His eyes are suddenly meeting yours, a faint smile playing on the edge of his lips. “See something you like?”

You jolt back, feeling your face grow hot. “I--  _ psshtt! _ Don’t hurt yourself from reaching so far. I’m just making sure you don’t pass out on me.”

“What would I be passing out from?”

“It’s hot in here!”

“I think that’s just you, darling.”

“I’m flattered you think so.”

His ears flick back, and you know you successfully turned the tables on him. “Who’s reaching now? I’m sure you can’t find anything with those short arms of yours.”

“I think you’re projecting.”

He turns to leer at you, towering over you even while you’re both sitting down. “Careful, now. What would Bronya think of speaking so boldly? You’re an honorary jade of hers, after all.”

_ Oh, this motherfucker did not just go there. _ Quickly, you reach into Lanque’s jacket pocket and whip out his palmhusk before slinking back to the other end of the sofa. You type in his password, which you memorized just the other night, before showing him his text messages. 

“Should I ask her?” you suggest. 

You’re on your feet and tearing out of there like a bat out of hell just as Lanque gives the most unholy rattling hiss you’ve ever heard, grabbing at you and taking off a few layers of skin off your upper arm with his claws. Gripping his palmhusk like it’s the only thing standing between you and death (which is kind of is), you turn, choose your target, and zap up to the rafters. It’s easily fifteen feet above the floor, so you’re pretty sure he won’t be able to reach you without a stool or ladder. 

“Hi Bronya, this is Micah,” you say, pretending to text to head jade. “Lanque and I are at a party, and he wants to know if you think it’s appropriate for me to call him out on some bullshit.”

“That’s-- you.  _ Get. Down. Here.” _

“He’s throwing a temper tantrum and it’s so cute! Should I send you a video? Tell Wanshi we both say hi--”

You don’t have the time to regret underestimating how high trolls can jump before you’re being yanked down from the rafters. 

The air gets smushed clean out of your lungs as you and Lanque land on the carpet. You make a vain attempt to scramble to your feet, only to get your legs swept out from underneath you and sending you face-first into the floor. Thinking fast, you yeet the phone away from the both of you as far as you can throw it in your current state, and when Lanque goes after it you dive for the sofa to arm yourself with a pillow. 

“Dang, and I didn’t even get to see the spicy nudes that traumatized Bronya so badly she never tried to look through your palmhusk again,” you sigh. 

Lanque’s fangs glitter pure white. “Oh, sweetheart, all you had to do was ask.”

In the blink of an eye he’s on you, twisting your arm up above your back while pinning you down to the armrest with the other hand. A pained grunt escapes you, but you relax as much as possible so that your shoulder muscles don’t pull. You lose your grip on the pillow and it falls to the floor. 

“Say it,” he demands. 

“Gah! Say what, jackass?”

“That you give up.”

“Never!”

You sing soprano as he pushes your arm even higher. You’re not going to be able to take much more, even though you’re flexible and you know that Lanque would never seriously injure you. Should you go for the old kick-in-the-nuts? No, trolls don’t  _ have _ nuts, dammit--

“Excuse me?!”

_ Oh, no fucking way.  _

You turn to see none other than Zebruh Codakk standing in the doorway, hands on his hips and glaring at Lanque with slitted eyes. 

“Who let you in here?” Lanque demands, easing up on the pressure. You flip around and sit up as Zebruh marches on in, growling under his breath. He does not look happy. 

“You can’t do that with them! They’re fragile!” he spits. 

Oh, now you’re  _ really _ mad. The longer you look at his self-righteous mug the longer you want to smash it in with a brick. “Don’t tell us what to do!”

“You-you-!” Zebruh hisses, pointing to your shoulder. The skin hasn’t even been broken. 

“Lanque’s allowed to put his hands on me. You aren’t. Just go away already!” you snarl at him, baring your teeth like angry trolls do. 

“I’m just trying to--”

What happens next takes your breath away, literally. A surprisingly gentle hand turns your face away from Zebruh, you look up into Lanque’s dark green eyes, and then a soft pair of lips are molding into your own like they belong there. 

Everything else fades away. You ascend through eleven different levels of reality, yet somehow stay grounded inside your body, feeling every single nerve ending light up like live wires. Lanque presses into you, pulling you closer and carding his fingers through the ends of your hair. You eagerly let him pull you into his arms, reaching up to lace your arms around his shoulders. 

You’re in his lap, which is nice, because you can feel all his muscles and shit… how the hell did this dude get so buff? Whatever the reason, it slaps. Also, his scent is really good. Kind of how you’d imagine starlight would smell, if that makes sense? 

Oh, wow, that’s a hand on your ass.  _ Hell _ yeah. 

Cool air rushes over your face as his mouth leaves yours, and a squeaky sound of protest escapes you, only for those same lips to latch on to your neck and start sucking. Your toes curl up in your shoes. Shockwaves race up from your belly, hit the bottom of your heart, spread out into every single crack and crevice in your ribcage before racing out into your legs and face and fingertips. Dagger-sharp canines scrape the skin underneath your jaw, tracing along your pulse. A wet tongue follows along the path before moving to the other side of your neck, and then you feel those lethal fangs close in around your throat, holding you in place like a predatory animal about to give the killing bite. 

In that tiny break in time, it’s just you and him and the roar of your pulse in your ears and him, him,  _ him.  _

He releases his hold on your neck, and you barely remember to gasp for air before he’s kissing you again like you’re a bottle of booze and he’s a criminal on death row. You suddenly remember the first time he kissed you, all those perigees ago at Ardata’s in an upstairs bedroom, and being surprised at how sweet he was with you… 

Hoping to the gods (and yourself) that you’re not fucking anything up, you card your right hand up through that sleek black hair and brush against the base of one of his horns. Trolls find horn-touchy-stuff sexy, right? 

As it turns out, they do, because you feel more than hear Lanque moan against your lips. You grind your hips into his and run a finger along his other horn. A low, crooning rumble deep in his chest is your reward, and you greedily drink in the sound, intoxicated.

You have no idea how long that goes on for, but you do know that when he finally pulls away you’re lightheaded and holding on to him in case you float into the sky. 

He’s gazing down at you with half-lidded eyes that glow like the light around black holes, and then he glances to the side and smirks in satisfaction. “Well, that sure scared him off.”

You blink. “What?”

Looking around, you at last recall where you are and the fact that you are, not for the first time, hooking up with Lanque Bombyx at a party. Zebruh is nowhere to be found. Your neck and lips are sore from the vicious assault they just received. 

“... Oh,” you say. “Well… uh, oh boy. Yeah.”

And that’s when Elwurd pokes her head into the room, sees you two whoring it up on her sofa, and gives you a big thumbs-up before leaving. 

_ … Did that really just happen?  _

You stare after her, all of the neurons in your brain frantically trying to figure out how to function even as your entire face burns like the Green Sun. The whole situation feels like a fever dream. 

Mustering all of your courage, you look back up at Lanque. He’s gazing down at you in a way that sets your lower abdomen on fire, and you have no idea if  _ this _ is a good thing to be even thinking about. You’re not stupid. You know what kind of reputation this guy has.

And yet, you can’t bring yourself to move away. You don’t want to. 

“So,” he says. “Should we take this upstairs, or-?”

He doesn’t get to finish that sentence, because all of hell suddenly breaks loose in the kitchen as somebody screams  _ “DRONES!” _

The real world comes back to you in a heartbeat. You and Lanque leap up and scramble for the window, only for a drone to come down from the sky and land just outside. The whole hive shakes from the impact. 

“Get down!” Lanque knocks you to the floor as a culling fork smashes right through the window. 

You grab his arm and zap the both of you down the road. The smell of smoke and fear hangs heavy in the air, threatening to choke you. 

Oh,  _ God,  _ your friends. You got distracted, and if somebody dies it’s going to  _ be all your fault. _

“Start running. I’m going back for the others,” you tell him.

Beautiful eyes widen in terror. “Micah n-!”

He’s cut off once more as you teleport back to Elwurd’s hive. A group of fifteen or so are making a break for it through the back, amongst them being Chixie, Remele, and Diemen. Out in the front, three drones are corralling half a dozen others into a frightened huddle. 

“PLEASE REMAIN CALM. CIRAVA HERMOD, IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED THAT YOU ARE IN ATTENDANCE AT THIS GATHERING. SURRENDER YOURSELF FOR INVESTIGATION IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL BE DEEMED GUILTY WITHOUT TRIAL AND CULLED.” 

_ Oh, Cirava, what did you do? _ You teleport in closer and peer around the corner of the hive, transfixed with horror as the goldblood stumbles forward like they were shoved. They’re bleeding from their nose, and you can tell even from this distance that they’re  _ way _ too high to try and process this whole situation. 

Even as one of the drones lurches forward to scan them with its weird laser instrument, they’re calm, standing before it as if they were standing in front of any other perfect stranger. 

“What’s up?” they ask coolly. 

“ALL PERSONAL RECORDS ARE CURRENTLY IN REVIEW. STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.”

Your mind races as you try and think up a plan. You can’t teleport multiple people at once without physical contact, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to get all of them at once before the drones open fire. If you try to take just Cirava then you leave the others open to the possibility of getting culled. If you try and teleport the drones, well… you honestly have no idea if that would even work. Where would you even bring them to? 

That leaves you with one last option. 

You brace yourself, take a deep breath, and charge out into the yard with a shriek. _ “HEY! _ You fuckheads miss me?”

Two metal heads swivel around on their sockets to look down at you. One of them scans you with the same laser thing they used on Cirava. 

“UNKNOWN, POSSIBLY MUTANT LIFEFORM DETECTED. LETHAL FORCE TO NEUTRALIZE HAS BEEN PRE-APPROVED UNDER LEGISLATION OA-4532-09,” one of them states. 

“Glad we’ve got that all sorted out,” you say, and then you turn heel and take off. 

Behind you, you think you hear Cirava cry out your name, but you’re already sprinting at full speed through somebody’s backyard, so you can’t be for sure. 

Bullets pepper the ground behind you, so you zap twenty feet to your left and jump somebody’s fence. That ends up not being a great idea, because the fence is spiked at the top. You don’t even realize you fucked up until your hands feel wet after you hit the ground running. 

To quote a certain lovable snowman from one of your favorite Disney movies, won’t you look at that? You’ve been impaled. 

You zap ahead several hundred yards to catch your breath. About a hundred feet up are the drones, who begin circling around to look for you. Hopefully your friends have all gotten away by now, even if you won’t. Which is fine, really, because every time you die you just come right back, but you’d rather not lose your life without putting up a good fight first. 

The drones spot you and start zooming your way, and you start running again, zapping around every now and then to throw them off your trail. You run for what feels like hours like this until your legs are aching and your lungs burn. 

Somehow, you draw them out past the mountain range where the caverns are and down to the shore. You yelp when a bullet grazes your shoulder, leaving a large welt in your skin. There isn’t much time left for you. 

_ Keep going.  _

You keep going, which, sadly, ends up being the wrong thing to do. 

One moment you’re on solid ground, and the next you’re falling through empty air as your dumb ass breaks through a thicket without seeing what’s on the other side. 

Which happens to be, of course, the fucking ocean. 

It happens pretty quickly, much to your relief. The churning gray waves rush up to meet you from six stories up. You hit the water and everything goes black. 

And you die. 

:::

For like, ten seconds. 

You wake up underwater, panic, and claw your way to the surface. The drones aren’t anywhere in sight. Your hands are no longer bleeding, as if whatever force brings you back to life gives you a health boost, like in video games. 

_ Fuck this. _ You teleport out of the ocean and almost trip up Lanque as he bounds through one of the alleys you passed through during your game of cat-and-mouse with the drones. 

“Whoop, my bad,” you say, instinctively reaching out to steady him. 

He whips around and stares at you in shock. Then, the shock morphs into anger, and then grudging respect. 

You blink. “What?”

“I don’t know if I should smack you upside the head for what you just pulled with the drones-- don’t give me that look, I saw everything-- or if I should kiss you again, because that was… rather impressive, honestly,” Lanque snaps. 

“Aw, babe, you really know how to make me blush.”

“Why are you soaking wet?”

“I fell in the ocean.”

“You  _ what?” _

“I fell in the ocean, dude. You going deaf or something?”

He doesn’t kiss you, which is disappointing for some reason, but he does take you by the hand and drag you along like a naughty toddler. 

“Where are we going?” you ask. 

“The caverns. What happened tonight is going to be all over the news and Thrashthrust isn’t going to be safe for any of us for a while.”

You freeze in place and almost get pulled over by Lanque. “Oh, shit. Is everybody okay?”

“Everybody’s alive.”

You’re beginning to feel as if Lanque isn’t happy with you, but you just outsmarted a couple of drones and saved your friends, just as you were planning to do since the beginning of the night, so… mission success?

You look down at your left hand, still firmly intertwined in Lanque’s, and wonder how many different kinds of trouble you just got yourself into. 

Said jadeblood suddenly stops dead in his tracks, and you smack into him from behind. 

“What the--” you lean back to see what’s up. Then you wish you just zapped yourself and Lanque back to the caverns while you still had the chance. 

Clutching his bleeding arm and staring you down from the other side of the street is Zebruh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I listened to "Die Young" by Kesha while writing this chapter.


	25. Of Fire, Burning

For a hot minute you just stare at each other, human and troll. The air is hot and humid, with this region of the planet’s short spring almost already done and the hemisphere well on its way to the absolute hell that is an Alternian summer. You’re still holding Lanque’s hand. 

Two major forces pull you in separate directions. Part of you wants to just walk away like you didn’t even see the fucker. The other wants to make sure he’s okay, because hello, he’s bleeding pretty badly. 

You feel Lanque press closer against you, much cooler than the air around him. When you look up at him he’s glaring fiercely at Zebruh, ears pinned back and a faint vibration coming through his side. You wonder what kind of noise he’s making. 

Zebruh hesitates, still clutching his arm, and turns before limping off down an alleyway. 

You take a step forward. “Should I…?”

“No.” Lanque shakes his head. “Don’t trust him. Just… don’t.”

Between the two of you, Lanque tends to have the braincell more often, so in the end you leave with him. That doesn’t stop you from looking back over your shoulder, though. 

Just in case. 

Lanque drops your hand to mess around on his palmhusk, so he isn’t looking your way at all, but that doesn’t stop the inevitable wave of heat that rushes to your whole head when you remember what you two did at the party to scare Zebruh off in the first place. 

It had been… well, you wouldn’t complain if he wants to do that again sometime. Even if you know that getting… _involved_ … with this guy would be the equivalent of willingly jumping back into the Alternian ocean. You wouldn’t be able to keep treading water forever. 

_Don’t be stupid._ You resist the urge to smack yourself. _He doesn’t think of you like that. Lanque does hookups all the time and this meant nothing to him. It was just to get Codakk off your ass._

“Bronya’s going to want to know where we were. You can tell her we went to a poetry slam together but you ended up getting harassed by some assholes, and then we had to make a hasty retreat,” Lanque tells you. 

“Got it,” you say automatically. 

You can feel his gaze on you, and when you look back up at him he’s obviously trying to restrain himself from laughing. 

“What?” you demand. 

He turns away to muffle a snicker. “Ask Daraya for one of her turtlenecks.”

“What are-- ohhh.” God _damn_ it. You don’t even want to see what the bastard did to your neck. 

“Not my fault your skin bruises so easily.”

You glare at him. “Yeah, you didn’t have to fuckin’ maul me either, you degenerate.”

He just smirks at you, and you pointedly look away while your face heats up like a furnace. You want to sucker punch him and teleport to the caverns so he has to walk back by himself, but you don’t want him to think you’re a coward, so you just raise your chin and keep on marching along like the bad bitch you are. 

You’re the First Guardian, and no stupid boy is going to get the best of you. 

:::

You guys manage to sneak in unseen, and when Lanque leaves you by flicking you upside the head you go find Daraya in her dorm. 

You knock three times on her door and wait. 

There’s some shuffling inside. “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

The lock rattles and Daraya opens the door, sees you, and her jaw drops. _“What_ in the--”

“Ssh!” You dash inside and shut the door behind you, frantically motioning for her to be quiet. “Look, do you have a turtleneck I can borrow?”

“What the fuuccckkk,” she wheezes, choking on her laughter as she points at your neck. 

“Is it that bad?” you ask tiredly. 

Daraya flings herself down on the sofa and snorts into the pillows. “Who did you even make out with, a rainbow drinker?”

You look around, wondering if you should just run away to save yourself the embarrassment, because, uh, what in the fresh hell were you supposed to even begin--

“You didn’t.”

She’s staring at you with huge eyes, and you know that she knows. “Okay, so the thing is, he kissed _me--”_

Daraya lunges for you and sniffs you furiously before jerking back with a hiss. “Oh my Gog you _stink_ like him, Micah-!”

“I can explain everything.”

“First you lead the drones on a chase, and now you’re pailing Lanque. Awesome.”

You rip away with a squeal. “No I’m _not!_ Zebruh showed up and started harassing me, and to get him to go away Lanque and I, ah, we, no, _he_ kissed me so Zebruh would think that I’m with somebody else…”

She stares at you with her eyebrows nearly at her hairline and her eyes half-shut. “Look. I’m just saying that you guys have some _amazing_ black energy going on and that no matter what, I support both of you.”

“This is revenge for us teasing you about Tyzias, isn’t it.”

“You’re damn right it is.”

In the end, you take a shower to wash the ocean and Lanque’s smell off you (you forgot how good troll’s noses are and it pisses you off) and put on the turtleneck and shorts Daraya left out for you. It’s too big for you, but it covers the huge bruises on your neck, as well as the two points on each side where Lanque’s fangs went into your skin. You hadn’t even felt them go in. 

But you’re not going to think about that right now. Nope. You’re going to a meeting with Daraya to discuss the next step for the rebellion. 

Or, rather, you were going, except halfway to the classroom Daraya had staked out you ran into none other than Bronya. 

“Oh, hey,” you greet her. 

“Hi,” she says, smiling, but then she grabs you by the arm and gently ushers you into one of the storage rooms. You quickly realize what’s up and start rehearsing Lanque’s story in your head. Bronya shuts the door behind you, and then the two of you are alone. 

_Ah, shit. Here we go._

“So, where did you three even go?” she whispers even though there’s no way anybody outside could hear you through the thick stone walls. “Lanque and Daraya have been gone all night!”

You sigh. “Daraya split off pretty early. I ended up going with Lanque to a poetry slam. Then, some highbloods started causing trouble and we had to leave.”

“A poetry slam?” Bronya groans. “He _knows_ he’s not supposed to go to those! They always end in somebody starting a fight…”

“Really?” you ask without thinking, and then quickly correct yourself. “I mean, I’ve been to a couple on Alternia and they don’t usually turn out like this.”

“I would hope that Lanque’s not bringing you to any indigo slams,” she says sharply. 

_Nah, but we did do some sloppy interspecies makeouts._ “He doesn’t.” 

Which is a lie, because you’re a liar, but Bronya doesn’t need to know that even though every word feels like vomit in your mouth. You are so damn glad she’s not psychic. 

She clasps her hands together and closes her eyes. “At least it’s not drugs. At least it’s not drugs. At least it’s not drugs.”

You decide not to tell her about the alcohol. “Yeah, drugs are wack. Next time I’ll tag along with Daraya and see what happens, okay?”

“Thank you.” Bronya heaves a tired sigh. “I know this isn’t easy for you. But you’ll never know how grateful I am. I just want my jades to be safe.”

_They aren’t yours to keep,_ you want to say. 

You two walk out together before Bronya excuses herself to go teach her bio class. Apparently the younger jades are going to be learning about the nether regions tonight and they’re all _very_ excited for once. 

You’re utterly drained from everything that’s happened that night, so you just zap to the meeting, sit your ass down in a chair, and do your best to give Daraya your full attention. Lanque gives you a knowing look. You make a face at him. 

Daraya doesn’t waste any time. “So, basically, shit’s fucked at the moment. Cirava’s hiding out with Xefros and Dammek, and so is Elwurd and those two girls she’s always with. The good news is that nobody’s dead. The bad news is that the whole area’s going to be on high alert for a whole perigee, according to Chittr.”

“I’m guessing there’s a price on all their heads?” Lanque drawls. 

“They’ll be appearing on every assassin’s list in the Thrashthrust area, but the city government hasn’t said anything yet, thank fuck. What I’m worried about is _you.”_ Daraya chucks a pencil at you. It hits your head and you grunt. “Can’t believe you led two drones on a chase, you dumb bitch. Now they have your information and everything!”

“It was that or possibly letting a bunch of people get killed. I’m not sorry,” you huff. 

“Are all humans as insane as you? I’m honestly curious,” Lanque asks. 

“No. A lot of them are crazier.”

“Shit.”

Daraya claps her hands for attention. “Micah, this one is going to be on you, since the drones already know you’re here. We need to show the world we’re not afraid.”

You lean forward. “What’s that?”

“I need you and Mallek to crash the city.”

Were your ears going? “... I beg your pardon?”

“You. Mallek. Shut down the power grids. I’ve already talked about it with Tyzias. It’s time to take things to the next level,” Daraya explains. 

Lanque’s brows raise. “And the rebellion is going to take responsibility for it?” 

“We sure are.”

“... Very well.”

You stare at her. “That’s gonna send the whole city into utter chaos. Alright, bet.”

She gives you a rare grin. “You’re the bomb, Micah.”

“I know. When are we doing this?” you ask, mentally figuring out your schedule for the next couple of wipes.

“The night after tomorrow. Be ready.”

“Yes, ma’am.” You salute her and rise to your feet to stretch. Something in your back gives a delicious _crack,_ and you groan in satisfaction. 

Your night takes a turn for the better when Lanque and Daraya turn to you with faintly horrified expressions, like you just stabbed yourself. 

“Sweetheart, please tell me that wasn’t your _spine,”_ Lanque whispers. 

You stare at him. “Uh, yeah? I cracked my back.”

Daraya turns around and lays down on the floor. 

“Do trolls not get gas bubbles in their joints, or…”

“Get out.”

You crack your knuckles and grin like a maniac as Lanque abruptly leaves and Daraya slams her hands over her ears with a shriek. 

:::

Really, you could have just gone to bed and called it a night after the meeting, but you have the power of time travel on your side, and when you have time powers bedtime is whenever you choose it to be. 

Since it’s been a while since you talked to John Egbert, you decide to swing by to see how he’s doing. You need to see another human face. Of course you love all of your troll friends, but sometimes… you just need to take some time to be with your own folk. 

Yeah, you’ll feel better after you talk to John.

Closing your eyes, you envision the poster-worthy American suburb he lives in, and let the chilly darkness of the caverns melt away into warm sunshine. You take a breath and open them, the scent of barbeque and pine trees filling your lungs. 

You’re standing on the corner of John’s block, which isn’t exactly where you were aiming for because if somebody saw your weird ass appear out of nowhere while they’re driving a car… well, let’s just say you don’t want to be the reason somebody’s insurance rates go up. Thankfully, it seems like everybody’s at work. 

Everybody except the little girl on her tricycle the next driveway over, that is.

She’s gaping at you with huge brown eyes, so you wave. _Please don’t start screaming, please don’t start screaming--_

“How did you do that?” she squeaks. 

“I’m a mailman. We get special powers to help deliver mail,” you inform her. 

“... Really?”

“Yep. Ask your parents, they’ll tell you all about it.”

She nods excitedly, hops off her tricycle, and races inside her house. Hopefully her parents will humor her. 

You turn around and start heading down the street to John’s house. 

The door opens before you can even knock. There’s no time to brace yourself before you get jumped on by an excited teenage boy, whom, of course, you have no idea who he could possibly be, seeing that he’s donned a rather fetching disguise of a plastic mustache, nose, and glasses to obscure his face.

“Why, who could this handsome young man be? Certainly not my friend John Egbert! Could you please tell me where he is?” you ask hopefully. 

“Look no farther!” With a flourish, the young man removes his disguise to reveal a goofy bucktoothed grin and wire-rimmed glasses. “Hi, Micah.”

“There he is! Hey there, kid,” you say, pulling him down to mess up his hair despite his squawk of protest. “How’s it been?”

“Great! My dad’s at work, so I’ve been trying to solve a mystery. You want in? All my friends from school are on vacation and I have nobody else to help me, ” he asks, bouncing back on the balls of his feet. 

You smile. “Of course. Tell me everything.”

“Yes!” He all but pulls you inside, and you barely have time to pull off your boots before he leads you to the kitchen and yanks open the fridge. “What do you want to drink? We’ve got water, milk, orange juice…”

“Orange juice sounds great, thanks,” you say, admiring the papers that have been spread out all over the dining table. Upon closer inspection, they turn out to be… online chats with Dave. Huh. 

John pours a glass of juice and hands it to you, and you drink gratefully. “This is my case file. At thirteen-twelve this afternoon, on July seventeenth, 2009, a close associate by the name of Dave Strider mysteriously vanished from an online gaming session. The session consisted of only myself and Mr. Strider. The time is currently thirteen-thirty-seven.”

“What video game?” you inquire. 

_“Minecraft._ It’s really fun.”

You sip your juice. “I’ll have to try it out sometime.”

“Definitely. I bet you’d be really good at it. Anyways, after the disappearance of Mr. Strider, I concluded that something was amiss and began to gather all the information I had concerning this kind of event.”

“Which is?”

John picks up some of his papers and adjusts his glasses. “Mr. Strider takes his gaming very seriously, especially the release of new video games like _Minecraft,_ which only came out in May. I’ve witnessed Mr. Strider forgo using the bathroom, eating, and drinking water so that he can focus on the game. You would think that such a dedicated gamer wouldn’t leave a friend stranded by himself in multiplayer mode, right?”

“Of course.”

“However, the evidence suggests otherwise. This sort of event has occurred twelve times over the course of our friendship. While Mr. Strider has apologized after each interruption, I’ve always found it… strange.” John sets down his papers and crosses his arms. 

An uneasy feeling began to knot your stomach as you looked over the printed-out online chats. There was no rhyme or reason to Dave leaving John hanging. Judging by the timestamps, each interruption lasted around an hour and a half. 

Something tells you that Rose and Jade have had the same thing happen to them. 

“John,” you begin, wondering how to put this in a way that won’t scare him. “What does Dave say about his older brother? Bro, I mean.”

Of course, you know Bro is a piece of shit, but you don’t want to believe that all these times are from him… from him making Dave strife. It can’t be that bad, can it? If Dave was in danger, he would have told you. 

Right? 

“Oh, Dave’s Bro is super cool! He knows how to swordfight, and he does comedy with his puppets and stuff. I met him once during a video chat. He lets me and Dave swear all we want, too,” John explains.

But even as he tells you how interesting Bro is, you can’t help but notice the way his eyes flicker away from yours, or how he tenses up ever so slightly. 

You need him to tell you more. “I’ve met him, too. He’s… maybe I’m just paranoid, but does he ever make you feel like… I dunno, like something’s off?”

John goes silent for a moment. “... Do you think that something’s wrong?”

“I know that Dave’s relationship with his Bro isn’t as great as it looks. But you know Dave better than I do.”

“I… I don’t know. Dave’s a weird dude. In the best way, obviously,” he adds. “But if something wasn’t right he would have told me or Rose or Jade. Or-or he would call the cops.”

The uneasy feeling turns into a deep, bone-chilling fear. You get up and run to the front door to pull your boots back on. John follows you, big blue eyes filling with worry. 

“John,” you say calmly. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, okay?”

He nods. 

“I’m going to teleport to Texas to check on Dave. If everything’s fine, I’ll come right back and let you know he’s okay. If Dave… needs help, I’ll bring him here so we can talk about what to do,” you tell him. 

He nods again. 

“Good. I’ll be right back.”

With that, you visualize Dave’s apartment and leave the safety of Washington behind. 

In a heartbeat, you’re standing in the hallway in Houston, Texas. There’s no air conditioning, and even with your inability to retain heat you start sweating almost immediately. It’s so quiet you can hear the blood rushing through your ears. 

You zap again, this time right into Dave’s kitchen. 

Everything is… normal. There’s swords mounted on the wall. Bro’s fuckass creepy puppets are watching you from on top of the fridge and on the counter. Last night’s pizza is resting neatly on a stool by the door. 

On impulse, you hop up on the counter and grab the shortest katana off its rack. A quick examination of the entire place reveals it to be devoid of all life save yourself and the three (3) flies that are helping themselves to the pizza. You’re keenly aware of the security cameras following your every move in every room of the apartment. You give every single one you see the finger and hope Bro sees it. 

So, nobody’s home. Maybe Dave forgot he had to run some errands? 

You’re just about to teleport away to go find him, and in the burning silence you hear it. 

The clang of metal on metal. 

_The roof._

Fuck. Oh, God. Please, _no._

Before you even know what you’re doing you’re tearing out of there as fast as you can. You race back down the hallway, katana in hand, and yank open the door that has ROOF in bold black letters at the top. Taking the stairs three at a time, you all but bash down the entrance to the top of the building and leap out into the brutal Texas sun. 

What you find stops you dead in your tracks. 

Dave is flat on his back on the concrete, bleeding heavily from a gash on his side. His glasses are nowhere to be seen. He’s not wearing a shirt, so you can see the mottling of black-and-blue bruises that have formed all over his torso, reaching down his legs. There’s one big one on his right arm, but he’s still holding on to his sword for dear life. He has blood all over his face and more keeps trickling down from his nose. 

And standing over him, katana wet with red, is Bro Strider. 

You meet Dave’s wide eyes, his pupils so small you can barely see them, and he’s staring at you as he wheezes in agony. A thin stream of blood falls down from the corner of his mouth and drips on to the roof. The blood in his hair is already drying into short spikes. 

A thousand miles outside of your body, you see Bro turn to fully face you. “Why the fuck do you have one of my swords?”

You just look at him. Bro’s mouth moves again, but as a high, thin whine drowns out all other sounds, you don’t hear a word he says. Your vision closes in, tinted with blood at the edges, as disbelief turns to anger, and anger turns to rage, and rage to an all consuming _fury_ that boils up from somewhere you didn’t even know existed. 

Somebody screams loud enough to wake the horrorterrors, and you think it was you, but you’re already charging with your blade held high. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get his ass.


	26. Of Wounds, Physical and Otherwise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all KNOW I can't bear to keep you guys waiting. Two days in a row, bitches!

Your name is DAVE STRIDER and you think you’re about to watch your friend get murdered. 

Despite the sun burning a hole through your shitty-ass albino retinas, you can see Micah as they fling themself at Bro, and you can definitely hear them scream like a deranged cat with rabies. 

They zap away and come on down on top of Bro before he has the chance to even process what happened. Micah’s katana cuts through fabric and flesh as they slash at his back, and Bro actually  _ yells in pain _ as he leaps away from them. The perfect white of his shirt stains red. He turns and tries to impale them through their stomach. Micah zaps to the side and slices Bro’s arm open from wrist to armpit. 

He nicks their cheekbone when a blow that would have decapitated anybody else ends up leaving him open as they once again vanish into thin air, reappearing to leave a gash on his ribs that was just like yours, except his was on his left and yours is on your right. Howling with rage, Micah slams into him with a strength that shocks you as they force him back towards the edge of the roof. The blinding flashes of light off their katanas makes spots dance around your vision. It almost looks like their eyes are glowing green, and there’s pure energy crackling along their limbs and blade--

Both dance around each other at speeds that shouldn’t be possible, Micah matching every flash-step, every attack, and Bro retaliating even as he bleeds from numerous wounds all over his body. The air tastes like ozone. 

A loud shriek pierces the air as Bro lands a hit on their upper arm. He kicks them back, and Micah barely has the time to scramble to their feet before he’s bringing his sword down on them. They bring theirs up to block, and the resounding CLANG is so loud your ears ring. 

Before your eyes, the metal of each blade splinters and cleaves in half. 

For the first time, you see Bro stumble as he loses his balance. Micah spits and kicks the back of his knee. 

And he

Goes

Down

On his hands and knees, the force of it making his shades fall off. 

Micah raises a foot and curb-stomps him right into the pavement. Blood splatters everywhere as Bro’s nose breaks like glass. 

_ “You fucking _ **_monster,”_ ** you hear them snarl, every word laced with a hatred so immense the sun’s heat withers away before it, replaced by an icy grip that freezes you to the bone. “You worthless, heartless,  _ pathetic _ shitstain on this universe.  _ Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” _

Bro gasps for air. 

“Tell. Me,” they breathe, shoving the broken sword against his throat. 

“The fuck… are you…”

They laugh, high and cruel. “Just somebody you shouldn’t have pissed off.”

_ Oh, God, they’re gonna kill him. _ You try to get up, to stop them, but you’re about to lose consciousness and you can barely move. 

“Micah,” you gasp. 

Burning green eyes meet yours, except that can’t be right; Micah’s eyes are  _ hazel, _ not green-- “Dave? It’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

“Don’t--” You cough and spit up a shit-ton of blood. “Please,  _ don’t.” _

They blink, and some of the fire fades. The point of their broken sword drops away from Bro’s neck. “You sure?”

“Yes.  _ Please.” _

_ I can’t watch my brother die, you’re scaring me, please, please, please…  _

They hesitate, and then they throw the sword away and run over to you, and you had to have been making shit up because when they kneel down next to you they’re just Micah again-- small, skinny, scared. 

“I’m tired,” you mumble. 

“It’s okay, kiddo. I’m gonna bring you to John’s and get you fixed up. We’ll take it from there, is that okay?” they ask softly. 

“... Yeah.”

“Okay. Just hang on a little longer… Dave?”

The Texas heat vanishes. You’re somewhere cool now, and there’s sunlight streaming in through a window. 

Somebody wails. 

Who…

Are you going to be okay?

  
  


Are you g

  
  
  


M

  
  


:::

You’re somewhere really nice when you open your eyes. 

It looks like space… yeah, it has to be space. There’s stars everywhere, trillions of them, in every color you can think of and then some you’ve never seen before. Nebulae wraps around the heavens like giant swaths of multicolored ribbon. 

Damn, you could easily drop half a dozen verses about this place, how fucking  _ sick.  _

You sit up, and it turns out you aren’t in space. There’s grass beneath you, and not the coarse yellow stuff that hurts to run through in the park a few blocks away, nah, this is the real deal, all green and lush. To your left is an ocean. To your right is…

Two hot chicks, one troll and one human, sitting in the grass together like old pals. Huh. Maybe this is the afterlife? Could be worse, you suppose. 

“Hey, dude,” the human girl says. “How are you feeling?”

You blink in surprise when you realize you aren’t in pain anymore. “Uh, pretty good, actually. Where… where am I?”

“Well, your body is back on Earth. Your consciousness is in paradox space. Pretty cool, am I right?” The troll girl leans forward, grinning excitedly. 

You’d recognize that smile anywhere, even if she’s bigger and has wings. They look like those of a butterfly, but something tells you that she’s far from delicate. “Aradia?”

“Yep!”

“... Wack. Uh, and you are you?” You point at the human chick, who laughs. Something about her is incredibly familiar. 

“A friend you’ll meet in the near future. I’ve got a message for you and Micah. Mostly for Micah, but you were easier to reach when you passed out,” she explains. 

Why the hell not? “Shoot.”

“Some friends of Micah who are in another universe need their help to cross over to this one. The sooner, the better.”

“... Uh, okay. I’ll tell them when I wake up. Man, I am really not looking forward to that…”

“Thanks. They’ll know what I’m talking about.” She beams at you, and you just  _ know  _ you’ve seen this girl before. Her blue eyes twinkle like she’s got a good joke nobody else would ever get. “Time shenanigans, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” you agree. “Can’t fuck up those sweet, sweet shenanigans.”

“Hell yeah!”

“You got this, Dave,” Aradia encourages. 

You give her two thumbs-up instead of just one, because Aradia is awesome, and lay back down to stare at all of the stars. Regaining consciousness is going to suck, but you’ve got a badass pain tolerance, so you figure you’ll be fine. 

“Oh, and Dave?”

You look over at the human girl. “Yeah?”

“Trust Micah.” The lightheartedness has gone from her pretty face. “Please, please, don’t go back to Texas. Everything you’re looking for isn’t with  _ him.” _

“But…” you protest, but the stars are already beginning to go out, and the girls are gone. A stab of pain pierces your side. You try calling for Aradia. 

And then you wake up. 

:::

The first thing you notice is how fucking  _ sore _ you are. 

The second is that you’re laying on a bed. A blanket’s been tossed over you, and there’s a warm washcloth on your forehead. 

You open your eyes and regret it instantly when your head starts to throb. With a groan, you pinch the bridge of your nose, wishing you had stayed knocked out for just a while longer. 

“He’s waking up!”

Footsteps. You force yourself to look up, wondering what the hell was going on.

Micah looks like they’re about to pass out from relief, and beside them is John, wide-eyed and his face red and blotchy. It’s obvious he’s been crying. 

“I thought you were gonna die,” he croaks. 

“It’ll take a lot… more than that… to kill me, Egbert,” you tell him, your throat so dry you can hardly speak. 

“I’ll go get some water.” Micah jumps up and darts out of the bedroom. 

John stares off into empty space. His glasses are smudged with tears. 

_ Aw, shit. _ “John. Dude. I’m  _ fine, _ really. This… this ain’t anything.”

“You… the--  _ Dave!  _ That-That bastard  _ beat _ you! He absolutely kicked the shit out of you and you almost died. That’s not normal, Dave, that’s not what parents do!” he cries, beginning to hyperventilate. “Don’t you get it?”

“So what does your dad do to help you get strong?” you rasp. Sure, Bro’s hard on you, but it’s because he wants you to be able to take care of yourself. 

“Uh, he takes me to play baseball in the park? Tells me he loves me? Any of those sound familiar to you?” he asks desperately. 

They don’t, but thankfully that’s when Micah returns and sets the glass of water down on the nightstand beside the bed. You try to sit up so you can drink, but you can’t move all that well. Micah helps you by pulling you up by your arms. 

“Thanks,” you wheeze, and you have to restrain yourself from gulping down the whole thing. Man, nothing tastes better than cold-ass water after two days of dehydration, but you found out the hard way that gulping down liquids was a good way to throw up. 

“You’re going to need stitches on your side and thigh. The other gashes are probably gonna be fine, but those two…” Micah shakes their head. 

“Got a needle and some thread?” you ask. 

The color drains from both their faces. 

“No,” John says faintly. “Micah said you wouldn’t want to go to the hospital--” 

“I don’t,” you say quickly. 

“Why?”

“Money.”

“My dad’s not worried about money, Dave--”

“If you don’t want to go then we won’t make you,” Micah interrupts when they see you’re getting uncomfortable. “But neither of us know how to treat injuries like this.”

John perks up. “Jade does! She’s lived alone on an island all her life. She taught me how to set a broken nose and everything.”

_ Thank fucking Christ.  _ “Yeah. G.I Jane knows what’s up.”

Micah offers you their hand, and you take it so that they can pull you to your feet. You stagger. John catches you, and you try to keep your freaking out on the inside, because you’re actually touching people. You’re with  _ people.  _

You wrap the bloodstained blanket Micah put your nasty corpse on around you, not wanting them to see your injuries more than they had to. Striders don’t show weakness, even to their friends, even when Death is staring them down. 

They offer you guys their hands, and you take it, but not before remembering how those same hands brought down a man you’ve always thought untouchable. The cut on their cheek has stopped bleeding, and from the looks of it so has their arm. Of course you knew that they had powers, but you never thought that they would be capable of something like… that. The image you had of Micah in your head-- kind, supportive, goofy, and empathetic, and the person you saw put a blade to your brother’s throat-- cold, merciless,  _ powerful… _ they just didn’t match up. It’s fucking with your head on every level imaginable. 

You wish Karkat was here. He’d be yelling and terrified about how you got your ass kicked, but somehow, he’d put everything in a way that made sense. 

Because even as you get zapped away to Jade’s island, you’re terrified that you don’t know who you are anymore. 

<>

Your name is JADE HARLEY and you think you’re going to have a panic attack. 

“What  _ happened _ to you?” you can’t help but yell, and you wince when Dave flinches. He’s sitting on your couch looking like he was just thrown head-first off a cliff, black and blue and bleeding out of multiple gashes. You’re standing before him with a needle and thread, at Micah’s request when John told you that Dave needs stitches. 

“We’ll tell you everything after, okay? I’m sorry that this is kind of… sudden,” Micah says, their warm voice soothing. 

You kind of want to smack them. “Fine. Sorry. Dave, lay down. Micah, hold his hand-- don’t give me that look, Dave, the numbing gel is only going to do so much and I don’t want you thrashing around and getting blood everywhere. I just cleaned yesterday.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, giving a weak salute and grabbing Micah’s hand. They squeeze back, bracing themself as if they were the one who was about to be in pain. 

You unscrew the cap from the tube and start smearing it across Dave’s side. He hisses in pain and holds on to Micah for dear life. 

You’ve got a lump in your throat, but you can’t stop now.  _ Sorry, Dave.  _

Once the gel starts taking effect, you thread the needle and start sewing him back together. His breathing becomes more ragged, and about halfway through you hear a  _ thump _ from behind you. 

“John fainted,” Micah sighs. 

“I don’t blame him. How are you holding up, Dave?” you ask. 

“Fine,” he says tightly. 

“Just a little longer.”

“‘Kay.”

You know he’s got to be in a lot of pain if he’s not rambling like the lovable idiot he is about every single thing under the sun, so you do your best to speed up the pace. Push in, thread through, tighten, repeat, push in, thread through, tighten, repeat… 

By the time you tie off the thread and cut it he’s passed out again. You take the opportunity to do the wound on his leg while he’s unconscious. 

“No others?” you ask after a while. 

Micah shakes their head. 

John wakes up long enough to drag himself over to the couch, and then he sees you going to town on Dave’s thigh and blacks out again. 

_ Boys. _ So delicate. “You’ve been gone a while.”

“How long?”

You have to think about it. “A few weeks. Bec was grumpy that his biggest fan wasn’t around to scratch his ears and fawn over him every waking moment.”

They crack a smile. “Sorry about that. Where is His Royal Brattiness, anyways?”

“Down by the tide pools. He’ll be back for dinner,” you explain. 

“Why else?” they joke. 

You finish up on Dave’s thigh and start cleaning up so you can go wash your hands. “Wanna walk with me?”

“Yeah,” they agree, rising and wiping their sweaty forehead. 

“... You know you can take that off, right?” you suggest. “It’s like, eighty-five degrees today.”

Their face flushes red. “I’m, ah, not wearing anything else.”

“Oh, okay.” You don’t know why they started acting weird, but right now you have more pressing issues. Like why one of your friends is unconscious and banged up. 

You lead the way outside and down the path to the beach, Micah close behind you. As bad as your afternoon had been, you can’t help but feel happy about the fact that you have your friends with you. 

A flurry of barking in the distance alerts you to Bec’s arrival, and in a flash of green he’s running up the path towards the both of you. He bumps his big white head against your thigh in greeting before trotting up to Micah. 

They smile and crouch down to greet him, and he goes still for a couple of seconds before sniffing them all over. He seems concerned by something, and you can’t tell what, but Bec seems to get over it quickly enough as he takes the lead. 

The beach is beautiful as always, and the three of you watch the waves for a moment. 

Finally, Micah heaves a tired breath, suddenly looking a lot older than they actually are. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ll start off by saying that Dave has been through some truly awful things.”

Bec whines softly. 

“If you were any other kid, I’d try to spin this in a way that makes the truth less harsh. But you’re not just any other kid. What happened to Dave… has been going on for quite some time. It was only today that John and I figured out what was happening.”

Your blood turns cold. “... For quite some time?”

They nod, eyes shut. “Jade, Dave’s Bro was  _ horribly _ abusive. I found them on the roof of their apartment building just a few hours ago, and when I did, Strider had done…  _ that… _ to Dave.”

You stare out at the horizon as you go numb from the inside out. 

“Of course I got him the hell out of there and brought him back to John’s, but he wouldn’t stop bleeding, and, well…” They scrub their face with their hands. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. I have to go back to Alternia soon for rebellion stuff… somebody’s told you about the rebellion, right? 

You nod. 

“Good. Damn, I also need to tell Rose to let her know--”

“He can stay with me,” you tell them. 

They turn to you, looking so relieved and grateful your heart hurts. “Really?”

“Well, you’re not bringing him back to Texas!” you huff, and they look offended at the very notion. Bec  _ woofs _ in agreement. 

You guys head back up to the house after that, with Micah looking like they’re lost in thought and Bec begging for food. John’s must have woke up while you were out, because when Bec comes trotting through the living room he gasps in delight. 

“Oh my God he’s so fluffy, Jade,” he whispers as Bec comes over to him and Dave to investigate. He begins nosing Dave, looking as concerned as a dog could be, before grabbing a blanket from the armrest and draping it over him. 

“Good boy,” you praise. 

Dave stirs, probably from all the commotion, and of course the first thing he gets to see is a giant dog sniffing at his face. He squeals and tries to fling himself off the couch. That goes as well as one could imagine, and you have to run over and shove him back down so he doesn’t hurt himself further. 

“Do not! You’re gonna pull out your stitches,” you order. “It’s just Bec. He’s not gonna hurt you. He’s a good boy.”

_ “Woof!” _

“He’s staring into my soul, Jade, he’s gonna steal it or some shit like Robin Hood,” Dave moans. 

“He’s not going to steal your soul-!”

“Yeah, everybody knows it’s cats who steal souls. Just ask Rose,” John argues. 

Dave scoffs. “Yeah, dude, I will. Then again, everybody knows that Rose also steals souls. She uses them in her wizard stuff that she says she totally doesn’t mess around with.”

You sigh. “I mean, you do have a point…”

Micah laughs, and you join in, sit down, and enjoy the company of your friends. 


	27. Of Thoughts, Private and Otherwise

Your name is MICAH and you really should be going, but there’s two kids and a dog sleeping on you. Thankfully, you’ve already dropped John off back at his place, or that dude would have not hesitated to pass out right on your legs. It’s happened before and you doubt he’s afraid to make it happen again. 

Mentally preparing yourself, you carefully slide your legs out from underneath Jade’s. When she doesn’t wake up, you set to work on wiggling free from Dave. He’s got an arm slung over your chest, but other than that that he’s pretty easy to get away from. 

Or so you thought. 

You barely have his arm back at his side before he jolts awake with a sharp breath. “Micah?”

“Hey, you’re alright,” you promise him, patting his shoulder. “I gotta go now. Jade’s gonna keep an eye on you until you feel better, okay?”

Dave scrubs at his eyes. “‘Had a dream while I was out. In paradox space. It was wack.”

“Uh… can you elaborate, buddy?” you ask. 

“There was Aradia, except she was older, like… your age. And this human chick who was kinda smokin’. They told me to tell you that your friends in the other universe need your help to cross over to this one? 

You freeze. “... Did they say anything else?”

Dave hesitates, not meeting your eyes, and shakes his head. You get the feeling that he’s not telling the truth, but you won’t push him, not after all that’s happened. 

“Okay, bet. Do you have any idea who the mysterious human chick is?” you press, wondering if he somehow met Jane.  _ Why do the others need to come to this universe?  _

He shakes his head. “Nah.”

“... That is wack. But thanks for telling me.” You stand up and stretch, but before you can leave Dave calls after you. 

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

For the first time since you met him, Dave looks genuinely, completely, vulnerable. He doesn’t look like the sword-fighting badass that he wears like a suit of armor in the slightest. “I… would you have really killed him?”

Your mouth is suddenly very dry. “I, ah… well, not if you didn’t want me to.”

_ Because I wanted to. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I would have done it to protect you.  _

“But if I wasn’t there to tell you no?”

“I…” You have no idea what to say to him. None. Zilch.  _ Nada. _ How do you tell a kid you were totally down to murder his older brother? 

Your silence apparently speaks a thousand words, because Dave just nods, still not looking at you, and rolls over so he’s facing the wall. 

“Take it easy,” you say, knowing you messed up but not wanting to push him any farther than he’s already been pushed today.  _ God damn it.  _

You zap down to the beach to watch the sunset. The view is incredible; the horizon is streaked through with every shade of red and gold imaginable, and the sky above is speckled with the first stars of the coming night. It’s cooled off enough for your turtleneck to finally be comfortable. 

How are you going to fix this? You aren’t a therapist. You don’t know how to help people who’ve been through abuse. Once you talk to Rose you’ll ask for some pointers, but other than that you’re flying blind. 

In some ways, you think, fighting in a rebellion on an alien planet is a lot easier than dealing with kids. 

“Woof.”

You turn to see Bec trotting down the path, plumed tail raised proudly in the ocean breeze. Man, it must be so nice to be a dog. No thoughts, head empty, just love. 

Granted, Bec’s millions of years old and a Guardian like you, but still. 

“Hey,” you say. 

He regards you with intelligent black eyes, and just like that you’re overcome with the realization that Bec knows who and what you are. 

“... Can you understand me?” you ask carefully, not daring to speak in anything louder than a whisper. “There’s no way. You’re a First Guardian, but you’re still a  _ dog.” _

Bec tilts his head, and a series of images flash through your mind’s eye-- crackling energy and stars forming a crown above somebody’s head, the night sky, Earth’s solar system, a small, pale hand holding a bunch of wildflowers--

You jerk back and fall on your ass. 

“The hell was that?” you demand breathlessly, scrambling back to your feet. 

Your own face appears next. At first, you’re watching yourself smile cheerfully, and then your eyes begin glowing bright green and your mouth distorts into a snarl. 

_ What the-? _

The shadowy version of you lunges for a much larger silhouette brandishing a sword, taking it to the ground in one fell swoop. Energy wreaths around you like hellfire. The longer you watch, the less human you look, and it chills you to the bone. When the vision fades, it’s like you’ve been slapped across the face. 

You finally understand. “That’s how Dave saw me.”

Bec huffs in agreement. 

_ I looked like a monster. Acted like one, too.  _ You swallow back a lump in your throat, feeling your eyes burn. The water begins to wash over your boots as the tide comes in, but you barely even feel it as you space out and stare at the place where the sky and the sea become one. 

“... I suppose you don’t know how I can fix this,” you say once the sun goes below the horizon. 

How did you even  _ do _ that? Sure, you can teleport, and produce little crackles of light that aren’t good for anything except looking cool and causing the occasional power outage, but never in your immortal career have you ever… unlocked that sort of ability. In less than five minutes, you overpowered a grown man with enough hand-to-hand combat experience to take out ten U.S Marines, thrashed him within an inch of his life, and put a blade to his throat with the intention of killing him… and the only injuries you sustained were two measly cuts from his sword. They still stung a little, but you wouldn’t even need stitches. 

A prickle of something akin to amusement lights up in the back of your head. You look down at Bec. Two more feelings and pictures appear: galaxies, and a little girl in a sparkly ballet tutu holding a tadpole in their hands, crouching in a mud puddle with all the contentedness that all toddlers seem to have when presented with the opportunity to get dirty. 

No, not a little girl. It’s little  _ you. _

The child in the tutu sets the tadpole free and stands, changing as they do so, growing taller and prouder until you’re looking yourself in the face. They smile that familiar crooked smile and hold out a hand. 

In their palm is a universe.  _ Your _ universe. 

It hits you then, what Bec has been trying to tell you. “There’s more where that power came from, isn’t it? I have to find it. I have to grow into it the same way I grew into myself.”

Bec’s black-and-pink spotted tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth, and if he was a human you feel like he’d be beaming at you like a proud dad. 

“I’ll do it,” you promise him. “But… where do I even begin?”

He gives you a look like,  _ Hell if I know, kid.  _

“... Alright.” You step back from the water’s edge and take a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll just have to figure it out as I go. That’s what I do best, right?”

“Woof.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the pep talk.”

Before you can zap away to Rose’s house, however, a tug on your sleeve interrupts your concentration. You look down at Bec, who stares up at you with a remarkable seriousness that shouldn’t have been anywhere near a dog’s face. 

A final image pops up in your mind. It’s you and all of your friends. You’re talking to them about something, and then the same starry crown he showed you earlier appears around your head. 

You swallow, your skin crawling with anxiety. “You want me to tell them about who I am.”

He dips his head. 

“They won’t want anything to do with me. Believe me, I want to, Bec, but--”

“Woof!”

_ They’ll find out eventually, one way or another.  _ Your stomach rolls with dread. Bec doesn’t need to use words to talk, but you understand him perfectly. 

“It’ll happen,” you manage to say, and before you can break down into a full-on panic attack you zap away to the mansion in the woods of New York. You’ll deal with your problems later. Helping other people is so much easier. 

<>

Telling Rose is easier in some ways and harder in others. 

She’s emotionally wise beyond her years, a product of her less-than-conventional upbringing, and generally just smart as all hell. It was her who first suggested (read: told you to your face) that you might be developing PTSD as an aftereffect of all that you’ve been through. You brushed her off at first, because you were  _ fine, _ really. 

Yeah, what a load of horseshit. 

You’ve also learned enough from her to pick out all five stages of grief that she goes through once you finish retelling what went down in Houston. You actually have to physically restrain her from throwing a mug at the wall. 

“I believe,” she pants as you herd her back to her desk chair. “I believe that I may have overreacted. But I will not apologize.”

“Compared to what I did I think your reaction is totally normal,” you assure her. 

“You should have finished him off.”

“I already told you why I couldn’t. Dave didn’t want me to.”

Rose sits primly in her chair, but her jaw is clenched hard enough for you to hear her teeth grind together. “It would have been for the best.”

“Maybe. But Dave is the one who gets to call the shots about this whole mess,” you tell her, but it’s just as important for you to hear. “He’s already pulling away from me because I tried to kill Bro. If we want him to come to the right conclusions-- that is, leaving that fucker in the dust and never going back to Texas-- he needs to do it on his own time. With our help, of course…”

“Or we’ll drive him right back into Strider’s clutches,” Rose murmured, closing her eyes and nodding. You can practically hear the gears turning in her head. 

“You know how to talk to victims of abuse, right? Or at least you’ve read about it,” you ask a little desperately. 

“... A little,” she says carefully. “Of course, trying to get Dave to open up about his trauma will be vastly different than, say, talking to you about yours. And way more difficult.”

“How so?”

“Because Dave does not recognize himself as having been abused. Or, if he does, he’s normalized it as a part of everyday life. You, on the other hand, know what you went through was extremely traumatic and have already begun to take steps to heal. You escaped the person who abused you.”

_ Did I? Or did I just buy myself some time? _ “So how are we going to get him to recognize that what happened to him was wrong?”

“I have no idea,” Rose admits. “But like you said, we cannot rush him. I’ll talk to him about staying with Jade for a few more weeks.”

“Good plan.” You lean back against the wall, suddenly exhausted. God, this day sucked enough ass to fill a sewer. When you get back to Alternia you’re going to sleep for twelve hours straight. 

Rose whips out a notebook and starts furiously scribbling something down. “While you’re here, can you rate your anxiety on a scale from one to ten? One is great, ten is you’re actively having a panic attack.”

“Six,” you snort, both amused and touched by her concern for you. “I’m going on a big mission for the rebellion tomorrow. We’re going to shut down a whole city.”

“Mm-hm. Any changes in health?”

“Well… apparently I have seizures now? It’s only happened once, but--”

“Seizures?”

“Yeah. I had a panic attack because something big happened, and, ah…” You’re not sure how much you want to tell her. 

“Some bad memories were triggered?” she suggests. 

“Exactly. And I think Doc Scratch might have been responsible for it. So I had a panic attack, and according to my friends I collapsed and started seizing violently.”

“Were you conscious for the duration of the fit?”

“No. I had a vision… one of my old friends came to me, because, ah, she does things like that, and that’s when I learned she died while I was… away,” you explain.

The hardness in her striking violet eyes softens a bit. “I’m sorry.”

“People die a lot,” you say. 

“Some would say too much.”

“Yep.”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, gazing out the window at the beautiful forest outside. A storm is blowing in from the west, darkening the sky and casting the afternoon into a premature twilight. 

“How have you been?” you ask her. 

“Terribly bored. My mother’s been at a convention in New York since yesterday, and I… have literally nothing to do. I don’t know when she’ll be back,” Rose admits. 

You nod, your dislike of Rose’s mom going up a few more notches. Maybe she was a version of Roxy, but she sure wasn’t  _ your _ Roxy, just like Bro wasn’t anything like Dirk. “Do you want me to bring you to Jade’s?” 

She perks up. “Would you?”

“Of course.”

A rare grin lights up her face as she hops up and runs over to her closet. She pulls out a purple backpack and tosses some sunscreen and a baseball hat into it, along with some pajamas and toiletries. While she’s writing a note for her mom to say that she’s at a friend’s, you notice a familiar notebook on her desk. 

“How’s your book coming?” you ask. 

Rose groans. “I’m currently suffering a crippling bout of writer’s block, thanks for asking. You would think a person with as much free time as I would be able to accomplish more, but no. A fictional world to save, beautiful women to pursue, magical powers to harness… and I am at a complete loss as how to make it all happen.”

“Any story worth remembering will be hard to write,” you encourage. 

She smiles again. “Perhaps taking a break will help me find a new muse. Or marinating in my truly soul-consuming hatred for the bastard known as Bro Strider.”

“Try to not let it consume your soul. We’ll figure it out eventually,” you promise. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

You drop her off at Jade’s without any further ado and take your leave. The kids deserve some kid-time, and you need some space to figure out what to do next. 

Letting destiny take the wheel, you hand over your future destination to your subconscious, a small part of you hoping that fate will give you some sort of clue. For what, you’re not entirely sure yet. The only thing you’ve ever been sure about since you crash-landed on Alternia was that you know nothing; about your place in the universe, about purpose, about who you are. 

So when you end up on the front porch of some abandoned house, you’re more than a little confused. 

_ Where the hell am I? _ Upon looking around, you see that one of the windows has been shattered. You hop up and over the frame, minding the glass, and land in the dusty, moldy remains of what once was a living room. Judging by a couple of shattered syringes laying on the floor by the couch, the druggies have already taken over. There’s no other signs of life-- footprints, the smell of piss, so you proceed with caution. 

Where you’ve ended up quickly becomes apparent when you notice a whole lot of the pictures of the wall are of the Everglades. Florida, huh? Well, if you’re going to bum around like a delinquent while you think about life, it might as well be with the crackheads and alligators. 

Maybe it’s because you already somehow know that this state is weird, but it’s not long before you realize that spacetime feels… different. Thinner, somehow. Like if you reached out and ran your fingers along the fabric of reality, you’d be able to feel a couple of loose threads, or maybe even a hole where it tore. 

Closing your eyes, you breathe in the stink of rotting wood and summer heat, and poke around space until you feel your mind go through something. 

You instinctively flinch back, but nothing happens. 

Trying again comes easy. Like threading a string through a needle, you look inside the tear. Your surroundings start to ripple around you, blurring in and out of focus. 

You suppose that the closest analogy to describe the situation would be that one river in the Amazon rainforest, where the two currents come together but stay separate enough for each side to have differently colored water. This is the very edge of your river, and you can feel the powerful rush of another close enough for you to touch. 

What you’re feeling is a whole other universe. 

There’s nothing to see on the other side, but you don’t stick around to try and find anything. That’s enough dicking around for one day. Knowing your luck, you’d fart and destroy the multiverse before you could even say “My bad”. 

Except… Bec had told you that you needed to learn your powers. 

You hesitate. Out in the distance, you hear a pack of coyotes begin to sing their wild songs to the stars. Heat lightning flashes through the sky and lights up the abandoned house in flickers of stark white. 

No. Your own interests would have to wait, as would the alpha kids. Right now, you needed to go back to Alternia and get ready for your mission with Mallek. You trusted them to all take care of each other. After all, they’ve been doing that their whole lives. 

Taking one last look around the house, you wonder who used to live here. The nature theme suggested a biologist, and yet the shelves were lined with books about everything that had to do with space. An astronomer, maybe? Maybe they even worked at NASA. 

Even as you zap back to Thrashthrust and make your way back to the caverns, you can’t help but promise yourself that you’ll go back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thanks for waiting, guys. I just moved back into my apartment for the new semester at college and had to get back into the swing of things. Enjoy Micah having an existential crisis. :)


	28. Of Uncertainty and Determination

“You’re insane.”

“Probably.”

“I thought you were trying to keep a low profile?”

“It’s not like we’re gonna be starting a riot, dude. We just need to knock out the power, and then Azdaja’s gonna make an announcement saying that the rebellion is here and we’re totally capable of fucking shit up.”

“You do realize the Heiress herself is going to come for you, right? If she isn’t already. The rebellion’s been really lucky so far, but anybody with half a thinkpan can tell that it’s not gonna last. You’re playing with fire.”

“I know.”

Mallek heaves a breath and scrubs his face with his hands, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Micah, I--  _ we _ just got you back. If you died, I--”

“Hey.” You reach up to cup his jaw. “Not gonna happen. I’m never going to leave you guys again, end of story.”

“You make my horns ache,” he mutters, cheeks tinted blue, but he leans into you and pulls you in against him. You wrap your arms around his shoulders and bury your face in the crook of his neck. His scent is familiar, comforting. 

“Is that a yes?” you ask against his hood. 

“What kind of guy would I be if I let my favorite robo-buddy run off to take out the government all by themself?” he snorts. 

“Your favorite robo-buddy? Dude, I better be your  _ only _ robo-buddy.”

He pulls back to smirk at you, one oversized fang glinting mischievously. “Jealous?”

“You wish, hacker-boy.”

_ “Information specialist,” _ he complains as you squirm free of his grasp before he can trap you. “Man, what’s a homie gotta do to get some damn respect around here?”

<>

Under the cover of the heavy fog that’s settled over the desert, Mallek guides the hoverboard down into the alley behind Thrashthrust’s power plant. Of course there’s more than one in the city, but this one is the biggest and the most important. Once this place was shut down, the other plants wouldn’t be able to sustain Thrashthrust by themselves, or at least that’s what Azdaja told Daraya to tell you before you left the caverns. 

“So how are we going to stop the backup generators from kicking in?” you whisper. 

He holds up a flashdrive. “This bad boy has enough energy to fuel a starship for a wipe… which is  _ way _ too much for Thrashthrust’s shitty power grid. The second this activates every transformer within the city limits is going to crap itself to death. When the backups try to pick up the load they’ll be in for a nasty surprise.”

You know next to nothing about Alternian tech, so he could have probably told you to sing a song and spit on a live wire and you would do it. “Uh, okay. Just tell me what to do and I’ll try to not get us killed.”

“Pfft, sounds good.”

You offer him your hand, and he takes it, staring at your intertwined fingers and not meeting your eyes. A twinge of guilt twists your guts; you feel bad about dragging him into a high-risk mission like this, but he really is the best guy for the job.

“Thanks for doing this for me,” you tell him. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” he stutters. 

You squeeze his hand in what you hope is a comforting manner and zap you guys inside the power plant. Some of those electro-bombs you used on the drone factory would be handy, but you’re pretty sure Polypa already killed the indigoblood who made them. You try to not think about that. 

Mallek takes the lead, aiming a little remote-looking thingie at any security cameras you guys come across as you make your way to the power room. Somehow, he’s got a map of the place pulled up on his palmhusk, so at least you don’t have to worry about getting lost. 

Neither of you talk for the better part of half an hour, not wanting to alert anybody to your presence even though you haven’t seen any signs of life yet. You know that drones run most of the important stuff on Alternia, so if there’s any of the metal assholes around here… well. What they don’t know won’t get you and Mallek killed. 

Once you actually find it, you’re surprised when the door to the power room looks like all of the others, save for the extra security measures. The lock is nothing fancy, just a simple, bulky thing keeping any hooligans away from the machines and computers that keep Thrashthrust running. Remele taught you how to pick locks after you befriended her all those months ago, but you’ve only ever managed to get through the front door to her hive. 

Boldir taught you how, too. You swallow back the painful lump in your throat that arises with the thought of your lost friend. For whatever reason you can’t put a name to, you feel guilty about not needing to know how to break into places anymore. 

The distance is short enough for you to be confident enough that you won’t land anywhere you’re not supposed to. You can’t afford to make mistakes anymore. “Ready?”

He grips your hand again, and you zap on inside.

To your relief, there’s no people or drones to be seen around the controls. Mallek takes care of the security cameras with a click of his remote. 

“This isn’t too bad,” you note.

“These suckers aren’t even trying,” Mallek boasts, former nervousness gone as he strolls along the rows of computers, eyeing each and every one like how a tomcat observes a mouse caught in a trap. He’s in his element once more, and you’ve always enjoyed watching all of your friends immersed in the things they love to do. 

“How come you’re giving those monitors respiteblock eyes? Should I leave you guys alone?” you joke. 

Mallek grins and runs a claw along an exposed wire coming out of a pipe in the wall. “You know you’re more than welcome to join in.”

“Oh,  _ damn, _ Adalov. So sudden. So forward.”

“Have you even lived until you had a…” He can’t keep a straight face and snorts. “A threesome with a computer and your tech-saavy pal?”

“Well, I was almost in a psionic gangbang with a couple of goldbloods in a back alley that one time, if that counts,” you offer. Meeting Folkyl and Kuprum was one of those events where you’re not entirely sure what happened because of timeline bullshit, but on more than one occasion you’ve jolted out of a dead sleep with the taste of something metallic in your mouth. 

“I… that’s actually pretty impressive.”

“Thanks! I try.”

With a grunt of satisfaction, he hops into one of the chairs and easily makes his way into the system… mainframe… whatever. You plop down next to him, observing, because at the moment you really don’t have much else to do. 

Five minutes becomes ten, and then fifteen. You’re starting to get antsy and end up in an aggressive game of footsie with Mallek. You learned a while back that Alternian footsie was just like Earth footsie, except way more violent, so by the time he finds what he’s looking for and leaps up with an excited chirp your shins are black and blue. 

“Did you just chirp? Like--like a cat? God, I love trolls,” you snicker. 

“I am a terrifying machine who now has control of all of Thrashthrust’s electricity, thank you very much.” He rolls his neck in satisfaction as he types in a few more lines of code and hits the enter key. 

And that’s what triggers the alarms. 

You won’t lie, you nearly piss yourself when neon-red lights start flashing bright enough to make your eyes hurt, followed by a low wail of a siren that steadily rises in pitch. “Aw, shit!”

Mallek winces, his ears pressing back to block out as much of the noise as they could. He does something with his fancy tech remote that makes the computer screen go black. Just as you grab his sleeve and prepare to make the jump back to his apartment, something slams into the door, and you lose focus when you jump in surprise. 

“Hey! Open the fuck up!” somebody shouts from the other side. 

“Um, no,” you respond, and zap yourself and Mallek right on out of there. 

You guys land in complete darkness, because hello, Mallek just killed the power to the whole city. Sirens are wailing in the distance, and as you watch you see backup generators try to start up and fail as Mallek’s wacky virus-thing causes them to malfunction. To the untrained eye, it would appear as if people are flipping their lights on and then back off again, but you know what’s up. On the street below, you see power lines get rendered useless as their power box things (transformers?) blow themselves to smithereens. 

“Hope nobody was in the middle of a shower,” you mutter. You do feel kinda guilty about inconveniencing all of Thrashthrust. You’ll have to find a way to make a public announcement sometime so you can apologize. 

A slow grin makes its way across Mallek’s face, or at least that’s what it looks like in the dark to your shitty human eyes. “Holy crap. Maybe you were right about this rebellion stuff all along, Micah. This is  _ fun.” _

“I told you you’d like it!” you laugh, shoving him. 

“We should do this more often. Just you and me,” he says quickly.

There’s something in his voice that makes you pause; there’s something he’s not telling you, but before you can ask him what’s up his palmhusk goes off. He reluctantly fishes it out of his pocket, his face turning serious as it’s lit up with the light from the screen. 

“Who’s that?”

“Stelsa.”

You try and take a look, but you’re too short. Blue eyes flicker back and forth as he reads the text. His eyebrows furrow. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“That other group-- Dammek and Xefros’s group, they went ahead and took advantage of the situation. They started another protest on the eastern side of town.”

“Did they tell us they were gonna do that?” you ask worriedly.

“Nope.”

“Great.”

You weigh your options. Something big is going to happen tonight, you can feel it, have been feeling it for some time now. The old, familiar tingle of a choice needing to be made hums somewhere deep inside your brain, and you shove it away with a scowl. You are the First Guardian, and you are the creator of your own destiny. 

You hold out your hand for Mallek to take. “You in?”

“Snakedad is rolling in his grave right now,” he says, but he takes it. 

“He’d be proud of you.”

“You think?”

“Well, I didn’t get to know him as well as I would have liked to, but I’m pretty sure he’d think fucking up a whole city in the name of change is kickass.”

Mallek smiles, and you can see the sorrow on his face from thinking about his late father, but now there’s a little bit of hope there, too. “Yeah. You’re right.”

You wink at him and teleport the both of you over to the eastern side of Thrashthrust. 

You’re surprised when you land in a worn-out street, almost completely deserted save for a couple of parked scuttlebuggies and some ten-legged critter rooting around in the spill of a tipped-over trash can. Giving the thing a wide berth, you and Mallek head down the sidewalk to take a look around. It’s quiet for this time of the night; normally you’d be seeing everybody out and about. 

_ Too _ quiet. “Where the heck is everybody?” 

“Inside?” Mallek suggests, sounding hopeful. 

Something slams behind you. You whip around to see a pair of yellow eyes staring down at you from a window before their owner draws the curtains shut. 

And that’s when it all goes to shit. 

Something explodes off in the distance, rocking the ground underneath you. You instinctively grab onto Mallek in case you need to teleport, but when nothing comes out to attack you take the lead, carefully making for the source of whatever just blew up. 

“Is it normal for humans to want to go towards explosions?” Mallek huffs even as he falls into step beside you. 

“Yes, actually. Did you want to hang out with the mutation from Chernobyl over there?” you ask, jabbing your thumb back at the thing eating trash. It stops in the middle of inhaling a McGrub’s burger wrapper to look up at you guys like,  _ Well, there’s plenty to go around.  _

“What’s Chernobyl?”

“Well, it’s a nuclear power plant that did a big whoopsie back in the day… actually, nevermind. Hold on to your shame globes, we’re going in.”

“Oh no--”

You do a quick hop through spacetime and drop out right on top of some huge indigo chick, who you almost immediately recognize-- this is the same girl you got chased by when you freaked out in a Troll Denny’s because Elwurd told you about the human girl that accidentally came to Alternia. 

She leaps back with a shout. “You!”

“Hi! Nice to see y--” you start, but she cuts you off when she picks you up by the scruff of your neck like you’re some misbehaving puppy.

“You’re part of this, aren’t you? Once I call the drones on your ass you’re through, alien!” she spits furiously. 

“Drop them!” Mallek snarls, but you’re one step ahead. Zapping out of the indigo’s grip, you kick her in the face as hard as you can and land safely on the ground as she staggers backwards, clearly not expecting for you to actually attack a highblood. She’s not injured; it would have taken a lot more force to even bruise her skin, and before you can say so much as “Oh, shit,” she’s coming back at you like a tank. 

You’re knocked out of the way as Mallek flies past you and leaps up to uppercut her jaw. He’s got his brass knuckles on, the ones with the spikes and everything, and he means business. But the indigo girl is nearly twice his size, so you really have no idea why he even tried. 

“Mallek! Don’t!” you shriek as he gets slapped into the side of the nearest building. He stumbles to his feet, the brick wall behind him cracked from the impact of his stupid ass getting smashed into it. You zap over to him, grab a piece of rubble off the sidewalk, and chuck it at the indigo girl, who stops dead in her tracks upon seeing that you teleported. 

It nails her right in the forehead, and she squawks in protest. “What the-?”

“Don’t hurt my friends, you bitch. Your lipstick is literally the ugliest shade of blue I’ve ever seen. If you’re gonna be an asshole to people, you should at least look good while doing it so they can’t fire back at you,” you tell her. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” It’s then you remember a particularly ugly curse word Wanshi once told you. “... Lusus-fucker.”

You get yourself and Mallek out of there before she can attack again, teleporting away a couple of streets down. There’s the sound of people yelling and things breaking close by, and you know that you found Dammek and Xefros’s little shindig.  _ Can’t wait to meet those two so I can yell at them for starting a riot during a power outage.  _

“Are you okay?” you ask Mallek. He’s hobbling like an old lady, and you don’t blame him. Indigobloods are freakishly strong, strong enough for your body to remember as you wince as he rubs his back, recalling all those insane workouts with Nihkee that had you aching for a whole week afterwards. You wonder how she’s doing and if you’ll be able to drop by sometime. 

“I’m good,” he wheezes, giving you the thumbs-up. His gaze fixes on something behind you, and he jerks upright in alarm. 

Every hair on your body stands on end. Reacting out of pure instinct, you zap Mallek to the other side of the road and yourself just a few feet to the left of where you were standing. 

Something fast slices by your ear, close enough for your eardrum to ache from the air displacement. You turn to follow its movement, only for a shop at the end of the street to get blown to smithereens. 

Spots dance around your vision as the shockwave knocks you back on your ass. 

You lay there for a moment, stunned, before a pair of strong hands grab yours and pull you upright. Mallek’s shaking your shoulders, desperately trying to tell you something even though all you can hear is a high-pitched ringing that singes the inside of your skull. There’s the troubled ocean of his gaze, the glint of light off that one oversized fang. 

And then you’re both running. 

:::

Your name is GALEKH XIGISI and there is a war going on outside. 

Well, perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration. But even on the outskirts of the city, you can see the thin lines of smoke reaching up to the stars, the glow of fire as it takes to the streets alongside the rioters. It’s not an unfamiliar sight; not with the Heiress using the lowblood neighborhoods for target practice every other wipe, but it’s admittedly startling to have turned on the television to get more information only to see trolls of nearly every place on the hemospectrum in some kind of protest. They’re all working together, olivebloods covering for rusts so that they can use their telekinesis to uproot hives, golds fighting alongside ceruleans, and perhaps your eyes are just playing tricks on you but you’re pretty sure you saw an indigo boy drawing fire away from a bronzeblood. He runs inside a building to evade the drone that turns to strike him down. 

_ They’re all working together.  _

You have no idea what to feel, what to think. It’s awful and terrifying and incredible. This is the outright defiance of history, of law and order, and you can’t tear your ganderbulbs away no matter how hard you try. 

The nipping of soft teeth against the cuff of your jacket pulls you back to reality, and you fumble to stroke Goatdad’s head as he rests his head in your lap. When you finally look down at him he’s regarding you with eyes that have always amazed you with their intelligence. 

“It’s not often I’m unsure as what to do next,” you tell him, quiet amongst the bookshelves. “Perhaps that’s my fault, though. I never tried to learn how to be spontaneous until… them. And then they were gone.”

He huffs softly. 

“Micah’s out there,” you realize. 

Another grunt. 

“Tagora will be, too. He’s… with all this talk of revolution. I tried to get him to stop. I lost one dear friend, surely losing a beloved enemy would be even more devastating.”

Your kismesis is clever in every way, perhaps even as clever as yourself. He’s infuriating to deal with and he knows it. Tagora takes the cloudless night within you and transforms it into a storm with a sentence, enrages you with his backstabbing ways and blows you away with his kindness, hidden so deeply within his bloodpusher. Even now he’s doing what he’s always done best: being horribly selfish for the wellbeing of others. 

This would all be so much easier if you didn’t know him. If you didn’t know  _ Micah. _ Like they had done with so many others, they came into your life with all the grace of a scuttlebuggy collision and changed it for the better. 

But the matter of the fact is that you  _ do _ know these amazing people, and so you pat Goatdad on the head and rise to go get changed into something more appropriate for what you’re about to do. 

Out in the city, people are lashing out against those who kept them under their boot for millenia. It scares you beyond belief, but as long as you know there is goodness inside of you, you will help them. 

And kick Tagora’s ass while you’re at it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, thanks for the wait! This chapter was hard as heck to write for whatever reason. Can we get a round of fucking applause for over seven hundred comments and seven THOUSAND reads???? You guys are absolutely amazing. In celebration, I will now ask you guys what scene from the story you would like me to draw to put on my Riverbound Tumblr account. Let me know what you want in the comments!
> 
> Fun fact: My voice claim for Micah is Bex Taylor-Klaus, who starred in "The Killing" and also voiced Pidge in "Voltron: Legendary Defender".


	29. Of Linear Progression, Unsteady

He’s there when you dream. Sometimes he talks to you, sometimes he doesn’t. A couple of times you’re brave enough to walk with him through the darkness, and all the other times you remain where you are in the light. 

The first time he made contact he looked around constantly, looking almost impressed by something. It’s only when you coughed to get his attention did he bother to look your way. 

“They really fuckin’ did it, huh?” he asked. “The boundaries are tight, I’ll give them that. I just want to know  _ how.” _

You just stared at him. “Uh, what?” 

“The universe, dude. This one, at least. Still newer than a baby in the goddamn maternity ward.”

“Oh, okay. Cool?”

He sighed and shooed you away. “Whatever. Go back to sleep. I’ll come back later.”

Four more visits occurred after that, each one weirder than the last. He’s clearly investigating something, and he won’t tell you what even though he won’t leave you the fuck alone. It’s kind of driving you nuts. 

This time he’s on some alien planet, which you quickly figure out is Alternia. You follow him across a field full of the scratchiest grass ever to an abandoned outpost-looking thing. He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, cape billowing out behind him in the breeze like he hasn’t got a care in the world. Of course, you’re not buying it, because he’s  _ you _ and you know everything about yourself… so far. Something’s got his panties in a twist tonight, and this time you’re going to find out what’s going on. 

The outpost is attached to the cliffside you’re currently looking up, and it’s definitely seen better days. Metal beams are rusted over and creak dangerously when you test one with a hard shove. One hundred feet up or so is the part where people would have worked, except now it’s clearly abandoned. Whenever the next storm hits, it's gonna be this thing's doom, you’re gonna call it right now. 

A twig being snapped underfoot gets your attention. You turn to see him hiking up a narrow path that winds up the cliff that’s barely wide enough for one person. 

“You’re seriously not gonna go into that thing,” you say. 

“It won’t collapse.”

“What’s in there?”

“Before it was abandoned, this place was a radio tower. The trolls who lived off-planet-- that is to say, most of them, needed a way to keep in contact with their home planet, so they got pretty good at communicating over vast distances in short periods of time. I just want to see if the systems are still operable.”

It finally clicks. “You’re sealing a time loop.”

“Yep. Aradia’s good, but even she can’t keep up with me. I swear, if I ever see that fairy-looking-ass bitch ever again I will shove those wings of hers up her own ass.”

You don’t know who Aradia is, but you can make the fair assumption that she’s been giving him problems. She must be strong as fuck if she’s actually taking a stand against your ultimate self. 

_ “Dirk?” _

“Yeah?” you say, but the voice wasn’t coming from the man you’re following. All around you, your dreamscape comes apart at the seams. You hear the old radio tower swaying ever so slightly, the croak of metal against metal, as the world spins around the path you’re on. 

_ “Dirk! _ Oi!”

You jolt awake with a gasp. Jake is staring down at you, black glasses shining brightly in the light of the late afternoon sun. 

“Jesus, English,” you grunt. 

He winces apologetically, hesitates, and pats your shoulder. You’re all getting used to the whole thing that is living with other people, which includes occasionally having physical contact with them. It’s terrifying and you can’t get enough of it. “Sorry, mate. Just thought I should let you know she’s woken up.”

_ Roxy. _ You sit upright and follow Jake down to the living room, where Jane had set up a makeshift medical ward. There’s a first-aid kit on the coffee table, she’d somehow hung up curtains so Roxy could have some privacy, and the pull-out couch had been transformed into a bed. The woman of the hour herself was sprawled out on her back, sheets tangled around her legs and curly hair sticking up every which way. 

You stop before her to take it all in. She’s got circles darker than the void around her eyes despite having been asleep for the past two days and there’s no color in her face. Her white shirt is stained yellow around the pits from all the sweating she was doing. 

“That bad, huh?” she croaks. 

“Well…” You wince. “A shower wouldn’t hurt.”

She makes a faint noise of agreement, her lower lip cracking from dehydration as she grimaces. “Y’know, there’s a guy standing behind you.”

You look behind you so fast you almost give yourself whiplash. There’s nobody there. 

“She’s been having these hallucinations,” Jane frets. 

Jake shakes his head, sitting down on the pull-out couch to pat Roxy’s knee. She pats him back, staring up at the ceiling with unfocused violet eyes. 

“‘M fine,” she mumbles. 

“We’ve got to get her back to my place,” you say. The fact that Roxy isn’t getting better creates a cold pit in your stomach that feels like it goes on forever. “I-I can build something that’ll settle her system. Lil Hal can figure out how to deal with alcohol withdrawal once I figure… once I figure some shit out.”

“Like where to get reliable medical information,” Jane adds. 

“Yeah.”  _ Don’t show fear, Dirk. Striders don’t do fear.  _

Jake isn’t buying it. You don’t blame him. “Is it even safe for Roxy to use that confounding little contraption of yours given her… condition?”

“I have no idea,” you admit truthfully. “But seeing as we don’t have a lot of other options I say that we go for it.”

Roxy shudders, rolls over, and throws up on the carpet. 

Naturally, that sets off Jake, who slaps a hand over his mouth at the sight and scrambles over to the bathroom to vomit. Jane makes a face.

“I’ll, ah… go pack her things,” you tell her, and run back up the stairs as quickly as you can. 

<>

Your name is BRO STRIDER and you just got your ass entirely obliterated.

The gash that runs all the way from your left armpit to your hip still stings like a bitch, but other than that you’ll be fine. Slap some stitches on that bad boy and you’re golden. At least all other appendages are present and accounted for. You’ve still got a massive headache from the heat exhaustion that came with almost bleeding out under the afternoon Texas sun, so you brought out the old trick pops taught you before he bit it all those years ago-- that is, sprawled out on your back on the kitchen floor with the fan on you and a cold washcloth on your noggin. 

The thing is, in all your thirty-whatever odd years of being alive, you’ve seen a lot of freaky shit. Some of it was kind of awful. Some of it was pretty cool. And none of it had ever fazed you, because you’re a Strider and nothing, and you mean  _ nothing, _ can get under your skin. 

So that begs the question: What in baby Jesus’s Kentucky-fried left sandal just happened? 

Glowing green eyes flash behind your closed eyelids, and you feel the hair on your arms and neck raise. 

It was that…  _ kid _ Dave started hanging out with a few months back. Normally you wouldn’t give a flying fuck about who your little brother hangs out with as long as they don’t make him soft, but this new pal was just  _ weird. _ What was their name, anyways? Mickey? Michael?

_ Micah. _ Right. Weird name for a weird kid. They had one of those faces where you couldn’t really tell if they were thirteen or thirty, and they looked like they were homeless. You also had no clue if they were a boy or a girl. Seriously. Everything about them was just… strange. You had only put up with them as long as you had because Dave agreed to up the number of strife sessions per week for the privilege of seeing his friend. 

You’d underestimated this Micah kid, a mistake you would only make once. They were tiny and goofy and probably only weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and then they turned around and went fucking super saiyan on your ass. 

What happened on the roof, that wasn’t  _ normal. _ There was green electricity shit going everywhere like the universe’s shittiest strobe party, and their eyes glowed, really fucking glowed. They kept up with you during the fight like they ate Navy SEALs for breakfast. Whatever they lacked in experience, which was just about everything, they more than made up for it with their… whatever the hell they had going on. 

And then they took Dave. 

Now, you know damn well that they won’t hurt him. Don’t really care if they do, either, because Dave’s a big boy now and he can take care of himself. But if it doesn’t just  _ boil your goddamn blood _ that they  _ humiliated _ you in front of your own brother. That overpowered freak actually had the gall to beat you, scold you, and curb-stomp you into the roof like they had the right to judge you for your parenting style? For spending thirteen years out of your life training your kid to be strong in every way? Yeah, okay. Alright. You see how it is. 

Groaning as your dehydrated muscles ache with every movement, you push yourself to your feet and head down the hallway to take a shower. It’s time to get your shit back together. After you get cleaned up, you have favors to collect, asses to kick, and a taxi to take to the airport.  _ I don’t know where you took my brother, Micah. But when I find you, I’ll find a way to make you  _ **_hurt._ **

You find yourself smiling as you slam your fist through the wall beside your bedroom door, imagining crushing their little head in your hand like an eggshell. 

<>

Your name is ARADIA MEGIDO and things are finally falling into place, faster and faster, each event colliding with the one following it like a perfect trail of dominos. It’s glorious to watch, especially with a view like yours.

In the living world below, you watch amusedly as Jade Harley leads a still-recovering Dave down to the beach and hands him a bottle of sunscreen. He fiddles with it before accidentally squirting a bit right into his eyes. Jade falls to her knees, laughing, as Dave runs away with a shriek and a fussing Bec nipping at his heels. Rose arrives soon after, a beach towel folded delicately in her arms. She observes it all with a smirk and brings out her phone to record the scene for blackmail purposes. 

A couple hours in the future, you see Gamzee wheeling Tavros down the street, talking excitedly about card games and the miracles that happen when you light a firecracker in Vriska’s loadgaper. Not too far behind is the younger version of you, wingless and powerless. You envy her in a way, you suppose, even though your life is fulfilling. This Aradia will get to change her world, grow up with her friends, and one day she will pass away from old age just like the rest of the people she loves. 

“They look like they’re having fun,” a soft voice sighs. 

You look down to see Boldir staring wistfully down through spacetime. A pang of sympathy tugs at your bloodpusher. The oliveblood had faced her destiny without complaint and embraced death with open arms, but she was still a kid, and no kid should have had to die as young as she did. Life is brief at best, and yet… 

“Did you get to talk to Fozzer?” you ask. 

She grimaces. “Fozzer is still being difficult. I don’t blame him, of course. He died well before his rightful time, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” you assure her. Angry spirits can be a real pain in the ass, especially if they died in pain. Fozzer went down sealing a hole in reality after it split off from the parent universe, preventing Doc Scratch from escaping and doing even more damage to this storyline. According to Boldir he had  _ not _ been a happy camper once he figured out he died. You don’t blame him. 

Boldir fiddles with a lockpick, still much too somber for your liking. The afterlife is something that should be  _ enjoyed, _ in your opinion, not spent moping around like Eridan after he loses a FLARP session. “Micah’s going to be devastated when they find out. Too many people are going to die. Too many people have already died.”

“It’s a revolution,” you remind her. 

“It’s a bloodbath.”

“Yep.”

A shout reaches your ears from somewhere behind you. You turn to see June hauling ass across the starry plain towards you, dark hair messy and her glasses askew. Her life force is almost blinding in the peaceful night around you. 

“What’s up?” you call. 

She stumbles to a stop in front of you, kneeling over to brace her hands against her thighs. “Oh,  _ shit. _ Ultimate Anime-Bitch is on the move again.”

You groan. “Seriously? I  _ just _ stopped him from trying to contact thirteen-year old you.”

“The fuck does he want with me?” June hisses. She rips off her glasses and wipes them furiously on the front of her shirt. “Every time I try to keep shit together in this fanfiction-ass mess of an alternate universe he’s there, trying to make it so we have to play SBURB.”

“I dunno. He’s just a hater, I think.”

Boldir makes a face. “That’s what Scratch wants, too, but he isn’t as nearly as pushy as Strider. Man, if those two ever ended up in the same room together…”

An awkward silence falls over the three of you. In the living world, you see Thrashthrust on fire, and the rebellion is hopelessly outnumbered against drones and trolls alike. 

“... Oh, fuck.”

<>

Your name is STELSA SEZYAT and you can practically  _ feel _ your career going down the drain. 

The oliveblood you’re grappling with is strong, strong enough to draw blood wherever she claws at you, and she’s screeching for the drones like you’re actively trying to murder her. You’re not, of course. You’d never purposefully take another troll’s life. 

“Somebody get this crazy bitch off me!” she shrieks, swinging at your face with a vengeance. 

You duck. “Dear, you’re the one attacking me at the moment! You’re a lowblood, for crying out loud, why aren’t you with the rebellion?”

“I’m not a traitor!” The oliveblood cocks her leg up and kicks your side so hard you see stars. You go down with a wheeze, the air in your bellowsacs having been forced from your chest.  _ Damn it, no, no, no-! _

A blur of grey takes her away before you can brace yourself for any more blows. You gape in astonishment as Tyzias, your scrawny tomewriggler of a matesprit, tackles the other girl into the pavement with a snarl. They tumble horns over heels together, shrieking and hissing and doing everything in their power to get at the other’s throats. With a mighty heave Tyzias flings her off and into the ground, bleeding from her cheek. 

You take the chance to lunge for the oliveblood and send her running with a hard bite to her forearm. She takes off with a squeal, her fighting spirit gone. 

Tyzias jumps to her feet. “You okay?”

“Am I-? No. No, sweetheart, I am not. We’re not going to have our jobs after this!” you cry out. “Our lives as we know them are over, and for what? Getting our asses kicked in a riot?”

You don’t know who you’re angry at-- Tyzias, the Heiress, Alternian society as a whole, but before you can meet your matesprit’s sad gaze a battle cry splits the air like a knife. 

An armored scuttlebuggy flies down the street, and riding on the roof is none other than Dammek himself. In his hands is some sort of mind honey-powered rifle (where did he even get one of those?) that looks like it could put a hole through a brick wall. He takes aim at a cerulean that has a rustblood pinned to the sidewalk, and with a single shot knocks her clean off him. She lands in a stunned heap in the road and doesn’t get back up. 

_ “Yeah! _ Go, Dammek, go!” Tyzias whoops. You give her a look, and she winces guiltily.

_ This is not something to celebrate! _

The scuttlebuggy screeches to a halt, releasing a group of trolls from its doors before the vehicle is even put in park. You recognize Elwurd, Ardata, and Remele, who all immediately surround the van to protect it from attackers. With them is Polypa, who must have taken the opportunity to introduce herself to the other rebellious faction, Tagora Gorjek himself, and…

“Are those  _ children?” _ you ask in disbelief as two little purplebloods and an indigo slink over to stand on either side of Xefros as he hops out of the driver’s side. The purplebloods are the smallest trolls you’ve ever seen, even smaller than that Karako boy. The indigo girl isn’t much bigger. All are armed to the teeth with daggers and empty faygo bottles, and the indigo girl has an axe, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re just  _ kids. _ “What on Alternia are they doing here? They’ll just get in the way or get themselves killed!”

Dammek smirks as he leaps down from the roof of the scuttlebuggy. “Hey, Sezyat. Come meet Barzum, Baizli, and Amisia! They’re some of our newer members, but they’re pretty talented when it comes to handling riots.”

“You are…” You storm over to him and shove a finger into his chest, glaring down at him with all the anger you can muster. “Just what games are you playing at? The power outage was meant to send a message, not devolve into… this!”

“If an opportunity to shake things up presents itself, we’re gonna take it. I respect the hell out of your group, but you gotta face the facts, dude. Messing with power plants and scribbling graffiti in alleyways isn’t gonna cut it anymore,” Dammek scoffs. 

“You  _ little--” _

You raise a hand to smack that arrogant look off his face, but Tyzias grabs it and pulls you away from the bronzeblood. “Babe, no. Dammek, cut the crap. If you wanted to start a riot you should have just told us so we could work together.”

You get the feeling he’s rolling his eyes behind those stupid shades. “We  _ are _ working together. Your group does some stuff to piss a few highbloods off, and then my group capitalizes on it so that people actually hear about it. Right, kids?”

Amisia sticks her tongue out at you from behind a sheepish-looking Xefros. He mouths  _ sorry _ at you, and you wonder how a nice guy like him ended up dating a jackass like Dammek. 

“Ugh, whatever, dude. Just don’t get too many people killed,” Tyzias mutters, 

“Same to you.”

You consider running him over with his own scuttlebuggy. Unfortunately, that would not be productive, and you really need this riot to be over by tomorrow because you have a project due and you need to look it over one more time in case some changes need to be made. 

_ If I’ll still have my job, that is.  _

Tagora scrambles around from the other side of the scuttlebuggy and sprints over you and Tyzias. “Oh, fuck  _ me, _ nope nope nope. I’m just gonna-- I’ll leave the fighting to the ladies. Thanks.”

“Scared, Gorjek?” Tyzias asks dryly. 

“No! I simply feel as if my talents could be better appreciated elsewhere,” he hisses. 

Dammek snorts. “Sounds good. You can carry extra ammo. Y’all wanna drive these assholes back down the block?”

“I suppose,” you sigh. 

“Cool.” He tosses you a fist-sized package wrapped in tape, with wires sticking out of a crack on the top. “That’s a grenade. Made it myself. Have fun.”

You stare down at it, before looking back up at a group of highbloods that have teamed up to verbally harass Dammek’s group and Polypa. Amongst them are a few teals. Something deep inside you goes hollow when you recognize a few of your classmates, jeering at Xefros and calling him all kinds of awful things. He meets their gaze without flinching, with dignity. 

Your feet are moving before your pan can catch up. In your claws, the grenade is solid and metallic. You clench it harder as you stride past Xefros and the kids. 

The highbloods and your classmates are still a ways up the road, and one of them is calling Ardata a caste traitor, a disgrace to ceruleans everywhere. She’s blue in the face with fury. You come to a stop beside her. You’re a traitor now, too. 

One of your classmates stops in his tracks and calls out to you, surprised. You don’t meet his eyes. You can’t. 

You do, however, raise your arm, take aim, and hurl the grenade at him while remembering doing a group project together. It clatters at his feet, glinting in the moonlight. He takes one step back, two steps back, and that’s as far as he gets before a deafening bloom of fire takes out a large portion of the pavement. The highbloods closest to the blast get slammed with the shockwave and fall to the ground with their clothes and hair on fire. The ones who were a little more lucky get the luxury of stumbling back to their feet and running away. 

And with that, you announce where you stand to all of the Alternian Empire. 

There’s no turning back now. Not ever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> o3o


	30. Of Brashness and Bravery

Your name is KONYYL OKIMAW and you are currently fighting for your FUCKING LIFE. 

This isn’t anything new to you-- in fact, it’s something you’re pretty good at. What’s new is that you’re in a riot for some social justice bullshit that you actually believe in, back-to-back with Azdaja, and fighting a pair of purplebloods while you can hear the drones getting closer and closer to your location. 

The clown’s chucklevoodoos aren’t as bad as they would have been if Azdaja wasn’t protecting your mind, but it’s still enough to make your knees weak with terror. You HATE chucklevoodoos. They make you feel weak. Weak, and tiny, and  _ worthless.  _

A furious bellow is Azdaja’s only warning before the purple he’s been fighting with comes barrelling out of the building he just got blasted into, twice your size and even more pissed off. Your moir-- matespr-- your _ partner  _ leaps out of the way and sears a hole in the bastard’s shoulder with his wacky eye lasers. Must be nice, having powers. 

The dude you’re tangled up with is trying to choke you out like you’re some weak bitch, so you teach him a lesson by slamming your claws into his ear canal and twisting as hard as you can. A giant hand grabs you by the hair. 

You don’t remember flying through the air, but you do remember hitting the ground with your whole scalp stinging. Leaping to your feet, you barely have time to brace yourself before you’re getting bowled over again, a solid fist punching the wind right out of your bellowsacs as you’re slammed into something hard. 

There’s funny little lights dancing around your vision. Dropping down to your knees, you youth-roll through the clown’s legs and forsake your dignity in favor of scrambling away like a frightened wiggler. 

As it turns out, that was definitely the right thing to have done. You turn just in time to see the crumbling brick wall fall over from the force of you getting thrown into it. The clown is too slow in getting back and gets a whole section of a building dropped on him. He roars in fury, thrashing violently under the debris as he’s buried alive. It won’t be enough to kill him, but he’s not getting out anytime soon. The chucklevoodoos release their hold on your pan and you’re finally able to think clearly again. 

You grunt in relief and limp as fast as you can back to where Azdaja is dodging around blows and bites from the bastard that still has the gall to be alive. The goldblood is starting to slow; he’s getting tired, just like you. 

“Hey, CUNTWAFFLE!” you snarl. With everything you have left, you leap for the other clown’s throat and slash him from bellowsac-enclosure to chin. 

He makes a loud, retching gurgle, cold purple blood spilling down his front and your arm, and falls to his hands and knees with a  _ thud. _ You finish him off by severing his posture pole from the base of his skull. 

“I could have killed him myself,” Azdaja wheezes. 

“Shut up.” You wipe the blood off your shoulder and look around. Up the road, you see Tagora helping Dammek load some kind of fancy-rifle-looking thingie while Stelsa and Tyzias pummel another teal into the dirt. They look like they’re doing a pretty good job by themselves, so you turn your attention back to your partner. “Wanna go find Mallek? You two should hack that radio station over there and use it to make an announcement.”

Azdaja scoffs. “I don’t need that stupid rich boy’s help, but sure. Don’t want him to die out here without seeing how a  _ real _ tech specialist works the system.”

“Good Gog, just say you hate him already,” you groan. He hasn’t shut up about Adalov all wipe and it’s starting to wear down the last pancell you have left. 

“I do  _ not _ hate that pretentious, stupid-!”

You take off with a whoop as he swipes at you. Half-running away, half-leading, you head towards the others just as the teal Stelsa had by the scruff escapes and tries to sprint off. Just as she passes you, you reach out with a fist and knock her out when she runs right into it. 

“Good one!” Dammek laughs. 

You like Dammek. He’s got a good sense of humor; that is, he likes watching people getting their lights punched out, just like you. “Hey, asshole. Any idea where Adalov is?”

“He said he was in a goldblood district with the human, but he’s making his way over here now. You guys got a plan?”

“We’re gonna hijack the radio station and make a… couple of announcements,” Azdaja says breezily. “Hopefully before this all gets shut down.”

Dammek nods thoughtfully. “Sounds good. I’ve been wanting to meet the human myself, not gonna lie.”

“Micah’s great, you’ll love them,” you assure him. 

“Yeah, sure.”

A series of quiet beeps catches your attention, and you turn to see Azdaja holding up his palmhusk with a smirk. “Got Adalov’s location. Let’s go get his ass.”

“Something tells me you’ve done this before.”

“I’ll kill you in real fucking life, Okimaw.”

You and Azdaja leave Dammek behind to take out an approaching gang of bootlickers with the teals. Darting down back alleys, you do your best to avoid the major street-fights that have taken over this part of the city, but you still have to dodge around a few pissed-off highbloods who are going for any troll with a blood color lower than blue. Azdaja trips a few of them up with his psionics, which makes you laugh so hard you get out of breath. Never in your life did you think that you’d get to get back at all the scumbags who did their best to make your life and the lives of people like you hell. It’s addicting, dangerously so. 

A few explosions go off in the distance, effectively killing your good mood as you skid to a halt out on a sidewalk. Thin plumes of smoke rise up into the sky on your right. Up above the skyscrapers, you see whole squadrons of drones circling in formation. 

“Uh, why aren’t they attacking?” you demand. 

Azdaja swears violently. “Oh, fuck  _ me. _ Konnie, they’re waiting for the Heiress to arrive. I’ve seen this kind of flight pattern before they bomb lowblood neighborhoods.”

For the first time in many, many sweeps, a pit of true fear opens up in your guts, endless and paralyzing. You swallow back the dryness in your mouth and force yourself to keep breathing normally. “Oh. Great.”

“Scared, Knelax? Actually, I don’t know why I said that. I’m kind of shitting myself right now.”

You turn to see none other than Mallek Adalov jogging up the sidewalk towards you, Micah hard on his heels. Both look a little frazzled, and little green sparks are jumping off the alien like fleas off a barkbeast. 

“Uh, dude, are you on fire?” you ask Micah, genuinely concerned. 

“Nope! Just scared,” Micah laughs. They rub their hands together, big hazel eyes darting every which way. “The fabric of spacetime feels like it’s being put through a giant cosmic washing machine. I don’t know what any of it means and I’m kind of scared to find out!”

“Uh, you can feel what?” Azdaja splutters. 

Mallek pulls them closer to him, looking a little helpless. “Their powers are acting up. Which is why they should let me bring them to the caverns so their jadeblood friends can keep a ganderbulb on them--”

“No,” they growl. 

“Micah--”

“I’m overstimulated, not helpless. I can do this.”   
  


Of course, that sentence was finished off with a sneeze that sends electricity crackling all over their body and Mallek jumping away with a yelp. 

Azdaja whistles. “Nice hairstyle, Adalov.”

Mallek scowls as he smooths down his now vertically standing crest. “Man, shut up. Are we gonna go meet up with the others or what?”

“Nah. You and I are gonna take over the radio station to announce to all of Thrashthrust that we just made it our bitch.”

“I thought you already got that done? I guess not.”

“Shit happens, fucktard. Why do you think I’m out here getting beaten up by clowns when I could be at home watching anime?”

“That’s fair.”

Normally you’d be all for watching your dear ‘Daja get his black square filled, but there’s smoke in the air and thunder out on the horizon that didn’t come from a storm. “Can we go now, punks? I’m hungry and there’s a marketplace I wanna loot.”

“You wanna eat  _ now?” _ Micah asks disbelievingly. 

“Yeah, I do, and you’re eating something too before your bones fall out of your flesh bag.”

They mutter something about not needing a mom, because _ they’re _ the mom, but you give them a Look and they fall in alongside you and the boys without further complaint. 

:::

Raiding the market goes smoothly, which is disappointing because you would have loved to beat somebody up, but the place looks like it’s already been taken over by the rebellion… or, at least, supporters of the rebellion. Those who haven’t been injured are yanking stuff off the top shelves and tossing it down for others to grab, and those who had a hard time in the riots are kicking back in assorted piles on the floor to nurse their wounds and eat food. 

“My lusus is gonna whoop my ass,” you hear a bronzeblood say to a gold. 

“Oh, same. I’m supposed to be at the schoolfeeding center right now.”

“Nah, that’s just Empire propaganda. My moirail told me about how it’s all designed to keep us down, even the highbloods…”

Their conversation gets cut off as you leave the building, a bottle full of something mildly alcoholic in one hand and a cluckbeast sandwich in the other. Azdaja is inhaling a casserole, and Mallek is encouraging Micah to drink the vegetable smoothie they picked out on a whim. Apparently humans need to consume more fluids and plant matter than trolls because their species aren’t primarily carnivorous like yours is. 

“This is gonna make me shit out my whole intestinal tract,” they complain. 

“Shitting is good for you,” Mallek says patiently. 

“Yeah, but it’s all fun and games until you feel the ring-sting.”

“... Why would shitting sting?”

“Uh, gastric juices? Remember how humans have acid in their stomach? That stuff  _ burns  _ coming out, I tell you--”

_ “I regret asking.” _

“So this is the  _ plan,” _ Azdaja says a little too loudly. “Konnyl goes first into the radio station to clear the way. Mallek, you and I follow and find the talking booth or whatever the fuck it’s called. Micah, get ready to zap us out of there if anything goes wrong.”

“Sure thing, sarge.”

You nod and shove the last of your sandwich into your face. The four of you make your way back to where Dammek and his fighters had cut out a swath of territory for the rebellion. He’s not there anymore, probably off fighting. Getting to the radio station ends up being a little more tricky, though, because there’s a huge brawl right in the middle of the road between you and the building. A cerulean takes a couple of swipes at you as you try to dodge around the fight, but Mallek shuts him down with a hard punch to the jaw. You’re impressed when the fucker goes down like a sack of rocks. 

“The gamer boy can fight! Who knew?” Azdaja sneers. 

“I like to think I’m pretty good at hand-to-hand combat. Better than you, probably,” Mallek shoots back. 

“After this is over-- oh,  _ shit.” _ Azdaja ducks as somebody chucks a piece of concrete at him, and it thankfully sails right over his head. “After this is over we should meet up for lunch and a duel. Just you and me.”

You grin as you yank open the door and charge on inside, but you hear Mallek squawk in surprise somewhere behind you. “Are you asking me out?”

“No! Maybe. But no!”

“All trolls know is fight and be horny,” Micah complains as they catch up to you. 

You snort. “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet. Drone season is in a perigee.  _ That’s _ when things get fun.”

“What’s… drone season?” 

“You don’t know what  _ drone season _ is? Holy SHIT.”

“... What is it?”

You cough and avoid looking at them. “You’ll see.”

Luckily, the subject gets dropped when a wide-eyed teal walks out of the lobby on your left and does a double take. “Uh, you guys can’t be in here?”

“Where’s the radio booth?” you demand. 

“You can’t--”

Their objections get cut off as his whole body glows yellow and gets tossed back the way they came, the large doors pushed shit behind them. 

“He was gonna tell me where to go!” you protest, but Azdaja and Mallek are practically shoving past each other as they race to the stairwell. 

“Doesn’t matter! We’re on a schedule!” Azdaja yells back. 

Micah holds out their hand, grinning tiredly, but they look a little better from eating. “Let’s beat them up there.”

“Oh, fuck,” you say, but you take their hand. One moment you’re standing on the ground floor with shouting coming from the lobby, and the next you’re on the second floor with your knees all wobbly from teleporting. 

“There!” They point at a glowing red sign at the other end of the hallway that says  _ ON AIR.  _

You feel yourself smile ear-to-ear, and you charge right for it, ignoring Micah’s pleas to at least wait for the boys before doing anything stupid. Like hell you would. This is the most fun you’ve had in  _ sweeps.  _

Kicking down the door reveals the room with all the fancy control stuff in it, as well as a trio of goldbloods that stare at you like, well. Like you just kicked down the damn door. 

“Alright, everybody get the FUCK OUT!” you roar. 

You step aside to let the two of them who are smart enough to bolt out, but the one who’s manning the audio tracks leaps to her feet with her fangs bared and a fierce growl building up in her chest. Her mismatched eyes begin to glow with psionic energy. 

If you hadn’t already spent sweeps sparring with ‘Daja you would have been fucked, but you know the telltale signs of when a troll with those kinds of powers is about to let loose. Waiting until you can taste metal on the roof of your mouth, you fling yourself to the side as she fries a hole in the carpet where you just were, mentally reminding yourself to tell Dammek to kiss your ass when everything is said and done. 

The goldblood girl clearly isn’t the fighting type despite having one hell of a temper, because she isn’t able to charge up again before you grab her by the hood of her stupid techno-colored jacket and hurl her against the wall. A nice troll-shaped hole appears in the cheap plaster. She’s stunned enough for you to yeet her again without a problem, this time out into the hallway, where Micah has pinned themselves to the wall with a  _ I just wanna go home _ expression on their pale face. 

“She’s not dead, is she?” they whimper. 

“No, dumbass, now get in here!” Ever since you went on that mission with them to save Skylla’s lusus, you’ve made a point to not kill anybody in front of them. 

_ Skylla. _ You wonder how she’s doing up in space, no doubt doing stupid gruntwork for the Empire. Not like you miss her or anything. Or that Alternia is a little less exciting without her on it. Or that your bloodpusher aches every time you get a whiff of fresh air, like the wild winds that blow across her country farm. Somebody else lives there now, you know. It sucks. 

Of course, that’s when Mallek and Azdaja finally decide to show up. 

Azdaja skids to a halt upon seeing the wreckage. “The hell happened here?”

“What the--” Mallek tries to slow down and fails, slamming into Azdaja hard enough to almost knock him over. “Oof! My bad.”

“Watch where you’re going. Also, dibs.” Azdaja gleefully leaps over the unconscious form of the other goldblood and bounds into the control room. He hops into a swivel chair and starts messing with all of the knobs and switches on the panel. Meanwhile, Mallek takes over the recording booth, fixing up the microphone and getting everything ready. 

Then, something seems to occur to him. “So, uh, who wants to do this? Because I’m not. Talking to people isn’t really  _ my _ thing. Just saying.”

You look down at Micah. “You wanna say some stuff?”

“Nah.” They shake their head. “Not my place. This is your revolution, not mine.”

Welp. Guess that means it’s up to you. 

“Testing, testing, one two three, is this thing still online? Awesome. Konyyl, you have the floor.”

Mallek tosses you the mic as you shuffle in and you catch it, a little blindsided by this whole situation. As far back as you can remember, you’ve always been told one thing by folks on both sides of the hemospectrum:  _ Konyyl Okimaw, you are a fighter, you are good for killing, you are gifted with strength and you will use it to serve the Empire.  _

They didn’t tell you that you were worthy of more than just that. No one except Azdaja and Micah, that is. 

And Skylla. 

You’re not good with your words. Not the brightest rounded illumination device in the containment unit, either, and you’ve accepted that. But now, you have the means to speak to the entire Thrashthrust area-- or whoever’s listening to the radio, anyway, so you can tell them that there’s a place for everybody who wants to be more than what a bunch of assholes told them they can be. 

_ Fuck it. Here we go. _ “I’m not gonna say my name, because of security reasons. Obviously. I’m trying to not get my stupid ass killed. Wow, I’m really bad at public speaking.”

Out of the corner of your ganderbulbs, you see Azdaja smack his hand to his forehead and Micah and Mallek wince. 

“... Everybody probably has an idea of what’s going on right now in Thrashthrust, if not because they’re already sniffer-deep in this mess. I’ll take this opportunity to make a couple of things clear: first, we’re not here to completely destroy Alternian society and plunge the Empire into complete chaos. We want to make it better. Because it  _ can _ be better! It should be better, because we deserve to live in a world where we should at least have a  _ fighting chance _ at choosing our own destinies. If you don’t agree with that, maybe you ought to think about why. Why don’t you think you deserve more than what this fucking awful society has?” You take a deep breath. You’re getting worked up, but you don’t want to stop. Not yet. “And I’m not just talking to the lowbloods. Highbloods, you have a place in the rebellion, too, if you want it. All of this isn’t just us getting pissy about you treating us like crap since the dawn of time; you’re not that special. This is about everything that’s happened, that’s happening, to  _ everybody.” _

Micah’s grinning now, giving you two thumbs-up and waving invisible pom-poms. 

“If the Heiress is listening to this, let me tell you something. This cycle of tyranny and abuse is gonna end with this generation, this revolution. I don’t know how yet, or when, but we’ve come too far to give up now! We ain’t taking your shit anymore, princess! Yeah, you heard me. Get your disgusting fishy ass down here and face us like a real troll. Maybe then we can start talking about why all this should have _never had to happen_ _IN THE FIRST PLACE!”_

You shout those last words just as the floor heaves underneath you, knocking you off balance. A shockwave blows out the windows down the hallway, showering the floor in shards of glass. Out on the streets, you can hear screaming. 

“We gotta go!” Micah holds out their hands, and everybody grabs on to them without question as a string of explosions lights up the city outside. You do your best to be gentle when you grab them, because you know they’re fragile, but all the bravado you just mustered out of nowhere is gone and you’re shaking like a leaf.

A blink of pure darkness passes, and then you’re all out on the street with people running by you in the way that only trolls who are fearing for their lives can run. 

You glance behind you when something flashes above Thrashthrust, high in the sky but steadily descending. Drones encircle its massive form, but you can hardly bring yourself to pay any attention to them. 

Shining like a blood-covered blade in moonlight is the Heiress’s battle cruiser. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Konyyl: AYO come face us TRIZZA!
> 
> Trizza: *shows up*
> 
> Konyyl: NOT LIKE THAT OH FUCK


	31. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Part One

Your name is AZDAJA KNELAX and you’re running like you’ve never run before, hand in hand with Adalov and Konyyl. Bounding alongside you is Micah, who zaps ahead to catch up whenever they start falling too far behind, all the while throwing off these weird little sparks of energy that taste like the air after acid rain. Each one gives you a little boost of energy when you absorb it into your system, and you have no clue how they’re doing it but now is definitely not the time for asking questions. 

“CITIZENS OF THRASHTHRUST, YOU WILL SUBMIT TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION. ALL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE OR RETALIATION WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY. YOU WILL OBEY.”

“We fucking heard you the first time!” Konyyl yells to nobody in particular.

On your other side, Mallek’s face is contorted in absolute fear, and if you weren’t also on the first of pissing your pants maybe you would have had the energy to taunt him for it. 

“Guys can we  _ please _ just zap out of here?” Micah begs. 

“No!” you snap, because you’re starting to have a bad feeling about the way their energy signature burns in the back of your pan like a friggin’ solar flare. “Look, every time you teleport you give off this burst of radiation from tearing open the fabric of spacetime. Same for when you come back out the other end of the tear. If I can feel it, the drones definitely can feel it too! That’s what I think, at least. I’m beginning to think that they’re trying to learn how to use the radiation to track the rebellion.”

Their head snaps to the side so fast to meet your eyes you think you hear something click in their neck.  _ “No. _ No, ‘Daja, there’s no fucking way--”

As it turns out, you’re probably right, because before you can start arguing with them a giant fuschia-and-gold drone slams down into the street in front of you, culling fork whirring where it’s robotic left hand used to be. 

Mallek screeches. Konyyl shoves her way to the front of your group and puts herself in front of everybody else, hissing furiously even though she’s reeking of terror herself. 

The drone regards you without emotion. “CITIZENS OF THRASHTHRUST, YOU WILL SUBMIT TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION. ALL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE OR RETALIATION WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY. YOU WILL OBEY.”

“NO! You can’t HAVE US!” Konyyl roars. 

In a moment of sheer desperation, you suck all of the energy you can out of Micah, shove Konyyl aside, and let loose with your psionics. 

The recoil nearly knocks you flat on your ass, but you feel  _ her _ giant hands on your shoulders and force yourself to keep going. 

In the heat-distorted haze of your vision, you see the drone actually stumble back and attempt to shield itself from the attack, only for its arms to melt right off. Hot chunks of metal fall to the ground and glow white-hot in the night. 

The familiar pressure that comes from exerting yourself too far begins to build up inside your skull. At first you can’t believe it, you’ve only been firing for a few breaths. There’s hot blood dripping down your lips from your nose, though, and your ganderbulb sockets are burning like all hell. 

“‘Daja, let go, you gotta  _ let go!” _

_ Just a little longer, c’mon, you got this-- _

“Knelax,  _ stop!” _

“AZDAJA!”

The drone’s metallic outer shell falls from its body. Its inner wiring and systems are completely exposed. You put all of your strength into one final burst. 

People are still yelling your name when you release your hold on the flames. Your insides feel like they’re decomposing. Fuck. Why is everything getting so dark? There are hands that hold you up, but you can barely feel them anymore. 

The last thing you see before you black out is the drone collapsing in a heap. 

<>

Your name is CIRAVA HERMOD and  _ ohhhhhhh you are all so screwed.  _

You wonder if this is gonna be it. The Heiress’s ship is now just above the tallest building in the area, casting a massive shadow across several city blocks as it cuts off moonlight from the world below. It’s even darker now than it gets during the Empty Nights, where both of Alternia’s satellites disappear below the horizon for nearly two and a half wipes. Those times scare the shit out of you, because people die so much more than usual, and most of the time there’s never even a clear reason why. Trolls with their ganderbulb sockets scooped clean, found dead in their hives, reports of screams that come from nowhere and everywhere, lusii running away in a fit of madness and never coming back. Sometimes they do come back, though, but they’re… different. 

But even the Empty Nights are predictable, because they’re  _ unpredictable. _ This is a whole new level of fuckery you’re not sure you can even begin to try and deal with. 

Somebody’s tugging on your arm. You turn to see Xefros mouthing something to you, pupils blown out in terror. 

Oh, right. Running. Man, you hate running. 

One foot in front of the other, and then the opposite one. Rinse and repeat.

The burning in your bellowsacs brings you back to reality just as the drones that have been circling around the battleship swoop down and open fire. The street behind you gets peppered with holes as big around as your fist, and then scuttlebuggies get the same treatment, making you look away as those with people in them swerve off their path. If some of them live, you don’t know. You don’t want to know. 

“CITIZENS OF THRASHTHRUST, YOU WILL SUBMIT TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION. ALL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE OR RETALIATION WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY. YOU WILL OBEY.”

Hanging a sharp right, Xefros drags you inside a flavordisk shop. You follow him; you don’t have any other choice and he seems to have an idea. 

“CITIZENS OF THRASHTHRUST, YOU WILL SUBMIT TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION. ALL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE OR RETALIATION WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY. YOU WILL OBEY.”

He vaults over the counter and into the kitchen in the back, almost slipping on a greasy spot on the floor but quickly righting himself. Keeping up with him is getting to be a challenge, and you remember that he plays arena stickball. Right.  _ Fucking jocks.  _

“In the freezer!” The rustblood yanks open the freezer door and all but throws you inside. 

“What the-- it’s cold as shit in here, dude!” you complain. 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. Hang on, lemme just--” He takes a deep breath and thrusts out his right hand, raising it as if pulling up on an invisible rope. Something behind you glows red. Spinning around in surprise, you find that a square section of metal floor just big enough for a troll to fit through is being lifted into the air. Xefros sets it down beside the hole and then points at it. 

You stare back at him. “Oh, my guy, you gotta be messing with me right now.”

“I’m sorry! Look, I’ll explain everything, but first we gotta go down there.”

“Xef, I like you, but you’re tripping right now--”

Before you can finish your sentence another explosion rocks the world, making the lights flicker and the ground shudder underneath your feet. 

“Aaannd we’re going, haha,” you say, and before you totally lose your pan you reach down, grab the first rung of the ladder that vanishes into the darkness below, and start climbing. 

<>

Your name is AMISIA ERDEHN and who would have thought that treason could be so  _ inspiring?  _ Really, ever since Chahut had to leave and you were on your own, you had looked high and low for something,  _ anything, _ to fill the giant hole in your bloodpusher that opened up out of nowhere as you watched her board her shuttle. And lo and behold, it finally came in the shape of clown twins that used to attend church with your best friend. 

At first you just hung out with them ‘cause in some way it felt like having a little piece of Chahut here with you, safe on Alternia. Then, you learned that they wanted to burn down the Empire for taking away so many members of their church, for taking away their future if the drones decide that they need to be culled for the crime of being born mutants. Their Messiahs told them that a new age was coming, you see. They want you to be a part of it all. 

So you went with them, missing Chahut, missing your lost alien friend who you were so  _ sure  _ was dead somewhere, and you joined a rebellion. 

Which might, in hindsight, have been a mistake. 

The other highbloods you were fighting are quickly being replaced by drones that came with the Heiress’s battleship. Dammek is losing his cool up ahead as he and the teals flip a scuttlebuggy over to use as cover. It won’t hold up against the drone’s arsenal of weapons, but if you guys time it just right before running away… 

“Is it even possible--”

“To take out a drone? Without lots and lots of weapons?”

You glance back at Barzum and Baizli, who weren’t having fun anymore now that the enemy trolls retreated. Their faces are mostly emotionless, as usual, but they’re huddling behind another scuttlebuggy by an alleyway. 

“Um… I dunno,” you tell them, wondering if you should just tell them to make a break for it. Dammek and his friends are cool, but you’re not ready to die just yet. Also, you lost your axe when you threw it at another indigo. “But if I tell you to retreat, go ahead and run like you frickin’ mean it, okay?”

Baizli nods stiffly. Barzum tightens his grip on the throwing knife in his hand and shifts his stance, ready to bolt the moment you give him the go-ahead. 

Not too far above, the battleship adjusts its trajectory. A low rumble fills the city, rattling your brains inside of your pan and shattering windows in the buildings that line the street. 

You can’t help it. You shriek like a little grub and book it over to the twins. 

Maybe if you’d been a little more aware of your surroundings instead of just focused on getting away from that noise you would have seen the stranger in the dark. But you were busy trying to not pee your pants, so. 

“What do we have here, eh? A traitor to the Empire?” A strong hand scoops you up from your scruff and lifts you up into the air. You squeal and kick, but the other troll’s grip is firm. “Never in my life would I have imagined that a highblood could turn against our people!  _ Chijoku!” _

You manage to look behind you to see some tealblood in a trenchcoat with a katana strapped across his back, glaring ferociously at you over his shades. He looks like an anime cosplayer. 

_ Great. I’m about to get culled by some weeb. _ “And you sound like a little  _ bitch! _ How are you even going to kill me with that crappy fake sword of yours?”

“I’m not going to kill a child without giving you a fair trial. If you comply I’ll put in a good word for you,  _ wakarimasu ka? _ Let’s go,” he snaps. 

He doesn’t even get to take a step before a blade sprouts from his upper arm. You’re dropped like a hot stinkroot as he yelps piercingly. Another blade whistles by your ear and goes straight into his thigh, and the tealblood folds like a lawn circle-chair. 

Barzum and Baizli advance down the alleyway you’ve been pulled into, hissing as they brandish even more knives. You’ve never been more relieved to see murderhappy clown wigglers in your whole existence. 

“Great timing!” You fall back to rejoin them, grinning as you see the tealblood drag himself upright by clinging to the side of one of the buildings. Gross. He tries to yank the throwing knife that’s been embedded into his bicep out, only for all of the color to drain from his face, making him sink back to the ground. 

“They’re barbed,” Barzum explains helpfully. 

“The more you move, the more they tear you up from the inside,” Baizli adds. 

_ “Like fondue,”  _ they chorus. 

“Aw, guys, don’t talk about food. I’m hungry now,” you complain. You were so excited to get going this evening that you barely ate any breakfast, and now you’re paying the price. Xefros told you that you need to eat your Grubbios so you can get big and strong, but did you listen?  _ Noooooooo.  _

“Do you think we can get Dammek to bring us to Taco Hell after this is over?” Baizli asks hopefully. “Before Marvus had to go to space--”

“He said that if we each ate a whole Butthole-Destroyer Spice Bomb Burrito--”

“We’d get a vision from him through the Messiahs so he can say hi!”

The tealblood once again tries to get back to his feet. Baizli turns to him and cocks her head. Half-rotten, spider-infested corpses start crawling out of the walls, and boy howdy, if you weren’t used to the twins’ chucklevoodoos by now you would have definitely crapped yourself. 

“Should we finish him off now?” Barzum asks. 

You sigh. The texture of cold blood from those high on the hemospectrum is so nasty. “Yeah. Gimme a knife, I’ll do it.”

Baizli pulls a knife off her belt to toss to you, but before she can hand it over a dark shape comes flying down the alleyway and leaps over you guys to land in front of the tealblood. 

“Hold it!”

<>

Your name is TEGIRI KALBUR and… are you dying? Yes, you must be dying now. That or you’re having some sort of fit. There’s no way you just got your rear end handed to you by three little wrigglers! Granted, they’re  _ highblood  _ wrigglers, but still! 

_ I’ve failed you, Sensei! I’m so sorry. Forgive me. _

“Hold it!”

_ Oh, thank all of the blessed stars. _ “P-Polypa!”

Your voice is weak from you going into shock-- how  _ embarrassing-- _ but your savior has arrived and now everything is going to be okay. 

“Kids, get back to Dammek and Xefros. Tell them the eastern perimeter is secure and that we need to track down the others,” she tells them. 

“Aw, but  _ ma’am--” _ the indigo girl whines, but Polypa gives her a stern look and points towards the street. The indigo sticks out her tongue but obeys, the clown twins slinking alongside her. The ghostly shadows of their chuckevoodoos fade along with them. Your breathing becomes less labored, and your pan clears away an invisible fear-filled fog. 

But something Polypa says isn’t making sense. “What… the eastern perimeter… Polypa, just what the hell is going on?”

She turns to you and kneels, wincing when she sees the knives in your thigh and arm. “Why are you here? You know it’s dangerous! Those kids could have culled you in a bloodpusher-beat and you know it.”

“Wha-- you need to answer my question…” you begin, only for your digestive sack to fall right out of you. Something in your chest shatters. 

_ No.  _

“I’m taking you to Marsti, she’ll know how to get these out,” Polypa mutters. “Dammek is gonna kill me. Just… keep breathing, okay?”

“You  _ traitor,” _ you wheeze, unable to believe that anything could ever be just again. 

_ How could you? I saved you, I trusted you-- _

“I know.”

_ We were a team, best friends, you were supposed to be safe-- _

“Why… they’re gonna…” Your vision is beginning to get fuzzy. “You won’t win, Polypa. The Empire… you won’t win…”

She glares down at you even as green-tinted dismay fluid rolls down her cheeks. “Micah will explain everything. They’re better with words than I am.”

_ I loved you.  _

You hiss at her, digging your claws into her arms, hard enough to draw blood, as she picks you up effortlessly. But even as you let yourself go limp to save energy, you think back on what she just said. 

_ Micah will explain everything.  _

And in that moment, you come to the awful realization that the alien you’ve come to accept as one of your closest friends was never your friend at all. They joined a rebellion to burn down Alternia. They turned Polypa against you. They stole her from you in every way. 

The harmless jealousy that you’ve always harbored turns into a fury so intense you’re surprised you don’t instantly burst into flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the next few chapters might be a bit shorter than usual because the pace is picking up! We'll be doing a lot of POV-bouncing as everybody reacts to everything going to absolute shit. This chapter also marks the beginning of the end of Alternian society as we know it... ;)
> 
> Alternate chapter title: Tegiri Gets His Ass Beat By Three Little Kids


	32. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Part Two

Your name is CHARUN KROJIB and… 

Um. 

Well, shit. 

You just woke out of a dead sleep after spending the last day-night cycle on a new sculpture that’s been taking up all of your time. Recent political and social events have done wonders for your inspiration, and you have no less than five more projects in the early stages of development. 

As of right now, though… you don’t know if you’ll be finishing them anytime soon. 

The cave system that you made your home in so many sweeps ago tunnels deep into the mountain, winding up sheer cliffs and ending in chasms that could easily kill you should you ever make a small misstep. One particular tunnel that goes up really high into the mountainside has a place where you can look outside, giving you a perfect view of Thrashthrust, which is where you are right now. 

And, well. 

It seems to be on fire. 

Like…  _ all _ of it. 

Above the mess is a familiar fuschia-colored battleship, with a steady stream of drones coming and going from it. Turrets occasionally spray fire down into the city below, and you send some good energy to whatever poor bastards are on the receiving end of the imperial arsenal. 

Not for the first time, you’re grateful for not having any friends in the city. You did have a few friends a while back; an oliveblood girl and an alien, but the oliveblood girl is dead now and the alien… is probably dead, too. 

It’s less messy that way. Nobody else to worry about but yourself. You’re better off alone. Always have, always will be. 

As you jog back down to your respiteblock, you mentally examine a few different courses of action. One, you wait it out from the safety of your hive and hope for the best. Two, you pack a couple wipes’ worth of supplies and head deeper into the desert until everything calms down. Three, you pack everything you can fit into your backpack and head out into the country to stay with your goldblood pal, Zebede. 

You’re already packing when you decide that option three is best. Yeah, the kid talks too much, but he’s an artist like you and being around a like-minded troll will be good for your mental health. That’s what your lusus would have told you, anyway. She’s dead, too. 

Wow, why is literally everybody you care about  _ dead? _ Maybe the stereotype about depressed artists has some fabric of truth to it after all. 

You throw one last pair of socks into your backpack and zip it shut, trying to cheer yourself up with the look of delight you know you’ll see on Zebede’s face when you show up. He’s never not happy to see you, even though you’re kind of bad at socializing. In a way, you think that maybe if you lived in a kinder world, you and Zebede would have turned out to be pretty similar. 

_ Maybe.  _

…

Well, it’s half a night’s walk out into the desert, so you better get going. You don’t want to get caught out in the sun once dawn rolls around. 

Locking everything up behind you, you spare Thrashthrust one more glance before turning away. Hopefully Zebede will know what’s going on; he watches the news a lot more than you do. It’s not a big deal if he doesn’t know, too. 

The less you have to do with the rest of the world, the better. 

<>

Your name is BRONYA URSAMA and you are the most awful mix of upset, terrified, and very, very angry. 

“What on Alternia are you two  _ doing?” _

“... What does it look like we’re doing?”

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady, you know damn well that you can’t-!”

“Can I? My foot’s already halfway out the entrance.”

You stare at Daraya and Lanque as they stand together at the mouth of the cave, silhouetted in hellish red from the city below. Thrashthrust is burning. It’s  _ burning, _ and these two want to run right into the flames. 

“I’m not going to stand by and watch while others fight for the chance to change the world,” Lanque tells you coolly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Ursama, but there’s a revolution going on. And you can’t stop us from being in it.”

“You’re going to be  _ killed!” _ you explode, your bloodpusher feeling like it’s going to fail as it pounds a lethal beat in your chest. 

“Perhaps.” 

_ I have to stop them. No matter what, I can’t let them just throw themselves into a riot and die. What would I do if they died? What kind of person would I be if I can’t stop them? Please, this can’t be happening! _

You breathe in, forcing yourself to not shake.  _ Don’t show weakness. _ “I’ve always been proud of how you two have never been afraid to express yourselves. But joining a riot isn’t the way to do it. I have to keep you safe.”

Both of their eyes harden to shadowed slits. 

“I can’t fucking  _ stand _ you, you know that?” Daraya snaps. 

She starts towards you, a growl building up deep in her throat, but Lanque pulls her back and hisses something into her ear, never taking his gaze off you. 

Behind you, you feel the presence of other jadebloods that have gathered to watch. An anxious muttering fills the darkness. Out of the corner of your eye you see Wanshi peering around the skirt of another girl, staring with wide, expressionless eyes out at the city. 

“Girls! Get back!” you call. 

Everybody immediately shuffles back, just a little. 

“What are they doing?” somebody asks. 

“Holy shit, Thrashthrust’s on fire!”

“... Should we start getting medical supplies for those who make their way here…”

“That’s treason!”

“-- going on?”

“Is it the Heiress-?”

You chirp loud enough to split the air, and silence falls. 

_ Deep breaths. _ “Lanque. Daraya. Come back inside, now. I won’t ask again.”

The silence turns from a hollowness to a crushing weight that threatens to send you to your knees. Nobody moves. Nobody makes a sound. There’s an invisible battle of wills that threatens to tear down this entire place, one stone at a time, one jadeblood after the other. 

For the first time in your life, the caverns are completely quiet. 

And then everything happens all at once. 

“Go,” Lanque says. Daraya turns on her heel and flies down the mountainside at a speed you’ve never seen before. You shout, making to dash after her, only for Lanque to leap in the way with his fangs bared, spitting and snarling loud enough to feel the vibrations through the soles of your feet. You’re forced to dodge back as he forces you away from the entrance. 

Something empty and aching hollows you out as you stare at him. You try to see something, anything, that tells you that he doesn’t want to fight, that he’s going to back down. There’s nothing. 

He’s ready. 

The anger hits you out of nowhere. 

You keep your word; you don’t ask for him to stop anymore. With a screech, you lunge at him and knock him backwards. 

Lanque is bigger than you, easily one of the biggest jadebloods in the caverns, so you’re surprised when you’re able to take him to the ground in one fell swoop. In the split second between feeling his back hit the stone and claws digging into your arms, you wonder if he changed his mind about fighting. The two of you skid down from the cave entrance, with Lanque trapped between you and the floor. 

Then he flings you right into the closest stalagmite. 

The wind gets knocked clean out of you, but you let yourself roll with the blow and spring back towards your feet, ready for another attack. 

But Lanque patiently waits, jackknifing to his feet with ease and casually slinking around back so that he’s blocking the entrance again. 

You try again, matching his path before lashing out at his face, hoping to cut his forehead with your claws and blind him with his own blood. He ducks and roundhouses you in the bellowsac enclosure. Grabbing his leg, you shove him back to knock him off balance, only to get punched so hard you let go. 

This time you  _ really _ feel it as you stagger away. Coughing, you can’t bring yourself to look at the other jades. You want to tell them to get back to their duties, but you can barely catch your breath as it is. 

_ Come on!  _ Forcing yourself to not hold back anymore, you charge towards him with everything you have. 

Somebody yowls-- it might have been you, maybe it was Lanque, but what you do know is that your legs are being kicked out from underneath you like fangpicks and you’re being dropped to the ground with an elbow buried firmly in your gut. 

You didn’t know you blacked out until you woke up to see Lynera above you, shaking you and saying something, but all of the sounds are garbled and incomprehensible. The only thing that makes sense is Lanque’s tall form striding purposefully out of the caverns without a backwards glance, which you see even from lying on the ground. 

“No,” you mumble. 

“-- Bronya! Bronya! Can you hear me?” 

_ Lynera. _ You look up at her, and your vision is clear; you most likely don’t have a concussion even though you’re dazed. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” she agrees, trembling. “What do you need me to do? What do we do?”

You let your pan run circles around the inside of your skull until something resembling a decent course of action reveals itself. “There’s going to be people fleeing the city and coming our way, like Pangur said. Get everybody who’s not on shift right now to set up camp by the entrance.”

A couple of the girls gasp. 

“We’re helping them?” Aviann asks in amazement. 

_ Mother Grub give me strength.  _ “Trolls from both sides will be here, in need of aid, and as jadebloods we must remain neutral. Give help to those who ask for it, and then send them on their way.”

“Outsiders aren’t allowed!” somebody yells. 

“Your leader just gave you an order, and you! Are going to  _ follow _ it!” Lynera roars back, puffing up to nearly twice her normal size. 

Everybody shuts up after that. Aviann and Natiri dash off to get supplies, followed by a couple dozen others. The rest of the girls head back to work, muttering amongst themselves in nervous whispers about what the world is coming to. 

<>

Your name is CHIXIE ROIXMR and you are _ not _ having a good night. 

“Look at her. Guilty as hell. Can’t even say anything to defend herself,” the indigo girl sneers as she stalks towards you, flanked by her two cerulean friends. You’re backing up down an alley, unarmed and alone, in the middle of a riot. 

“I can speak!” you yelp. “I-I’m not with them! I’m just a music artist, promise! Really, this is a huge misunderstanding--”

“I-I,” one of the ceruleans mock, and the other snickers. 

“Don’t you have powers, girl? Too much of a wuss to raise a claw?” the indigo taunts. 

Something about the way she says that sparks a flame of anger within you. This bitch is enjoying your fear, feels entitled to it, entitled to your time and explanations and _ life. _ “I’m not stupid. Assault against a highblood is a crime punishable by death.”

You also have absolutely no powers to speak of, but she doesn’t need to know that. 

“Ooh, we got a lawyer here!” the cerulean on her left calls. 

The indigo rolls her eyes with a smirk. Her fangs are fucking  _ huge, _ Jegus. If she wanted to bite your head off in one go she could probably do it. “Come on, shitblood. Swing at me. You can have one free shot. I won’t call the drones or anything, highblood’s honor.”

“There’s no such thing,” you growl. 

“Hit me.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said  _ no!” _ you snarl. 

The sound echoes off the walls in a thunder so loud the ceruleans jump with matching shrieks… except it wasn’t all yours. 

In a kind of trance, you watch as the indigo girl slumps to the ground, lifeless, with a coin-sized hole in her forehead. Two more shots ring out. The cerulean on the right drops dead, followed right after by her friend. 

You look behind you and upwards to see the barrel of a rifle sticking out of a broken window on the first floor. 

Because your last pan cell has already been decimated by less than three hours of sleep yesterday, you don’t think about if you’re next, but rather how the heck somebody got their hands on a gun. 

They’re waving to you, signaling for you to get inside the building. Crap, should you make a break for it? What if they’re just luring you in to have you arrested and culled--

“Hey!”

Looking back towards the other end of the alley, you see four purplebloods storming towards you with clubs in their hands and murder in their eyes. 

You know what? You’ll take your chances with the sniper. 

Turning on your heel, you break into a sprint and run like hell for the broken window. It’s several feet above your head. A black-gloved hand reaches down to help you, and at the last possible moment you crouch and jump as high as you can. 

Claws dig into the skin on your wrist just hard enough to hurt. You’re pulled up and through, somehow not slicing yourself open on all the broken glass.

You hop down to the dirty pavement floor at the exact same time a wave of sheer  _ terror _ so paralyzing, so _ immense _ your knees buckle, sending you down like you were pushed. It’s everywhere, you’re bleeding from your mouth as you bite your lip to stop yourself from screaming, it’s flowing back into your throat and into your bellowsacs--

Where’s Sparrowmom? You want your lusus, you want her to make it all go away. 

Go away. Go away. 

Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away. 

_ Go away go away go away go away go away-! _

**BANG!**

You suck in air with a gasp as the heaviness dissipates.  **BANG!**

_ Get up.  _

**BANG!** You get up, forcing yourself to stay steady. **BANG!**

**BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!**

A choked gurgle from outside lets you know that the clowns aren’t going to be a problem anymore. There’s some shuffling, and you turn to see the sniper stumble back, clutching their rifle and shaking. 

“Fucking chucklevoodoos,” you offer with a wheeze of hysterical laughter.

They cough, give you the thumbs up, and gesture for you to come with them. Wisely, they’ve chosen to wear black from horns to toes, along with a helmet and mask to obscure their face. It looks like some kind of fancy highblood laser-tag gear. Dang, you need something like that. You’re a rebel now. You ought to do a whole wardrobe makeover. 

The two of you leave the building together from the other side as the mechanical hum of drones draws closer to your location, probably alerted to the sniper’s presence from the sound of gunfire. You don’t know where you’re going, or who this person even is. Will you be going home in the morning, if you still have a home to return to? Did Sparrowmom have to leave because of the fire? 

Well, seeing that everything’s gone to hell and that there’s a good chance you’ll die tonight, you decide that you’re going to give this your all. You’re going to stick it to the assholes on top and help out the rebellion in any way you can. 

Dammek and Xefros both made it clear that you don’t have to join in on the fighting until you want to. There are bigger, stronger trolls for that, you know, even if they didn’t say it out loud. But hey, you seem to have made an alliance with this random sniper dude, and when life gives you yellow sour-fruits…

It’s time to fuck shit up. 

Through a gap in between a pair of hives, you see a group of lowbloods being chased by some highbloods. Without needing to elaborate, you and the sniper cut through to the other side, and you help them up onto the roof of a shed so they have a better vantage point. They take aim and shoot into the highbloods. A purpleblood guy goes down like a sack of bricks. The rest of them scatter, only to get shot in the leg or arm. 

CRACK! 

All the excitement leaves your body like a particularly rancid fart when a hole appears in the metal roof right next to your head. With a shriek, you kick the sniper off the roof and roll off the other side, landing on your feet hard enough to sting your ankles. 

A trio of drones comes blazing down towards you like a swarm of angry murderwasps, culling forks glinting in the light of the fire. The sniper yanks you back towards the shed for whatever shelter it might offer, but it’s too late, and you just  _ know _ that you’re gonna die. 

“CITIZENS OF THRASHTHRUST, YOU WILL SUBMIT TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION. ALL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE OR RETALIATION WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY. YOU WILL OBEY.”

You raise your hands in surrender, the sniper doing the same after laying their weapon down in the grass. 

“PLEASE REMAIN CALM. SURRENDER TO IMPERIAL LAW FOR INVESTIGATION IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL BE DEEMED GUILTY WITHOUT TRIAL AND CULLED.”

“I surrender,” you choke. 

“Oh, fuck me. I surrender, too.”

You look over just as the sniper yanks off their mask and helmet. For a tiny slice of eternity, you just… stare, and you wonder what the fuck your life has come to. 

_ “Zebruh?” _

He grimaces. “Yeah… hi, Chixie. Nice running into you on this fine night.”

“Why?” you ask. 

“I-I don’t know--”

“CITIZENS, YOU WILL CEASE CONVERSATION. STATE YOUR CASTE NAMES.”

“... Roixmr.”

“Codakk.”

Nobody speaks or does anything while the drones process your information. 

Then, “YOU WILL BE BROUGHT BACK TO THE COURTHIVE FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION. DO NOT RESIST.”

“What? You have no proof! Look, me and my friend were out protecting the city from rioters. Some assholes started shooting at those highbloods over there and I shot back,” Zebruh protests. 

“Codakk, shut up,” you beg in a whisper. 

“No, they’re not gonna treat us like this! Let me call my legislacerator and they’ll clear everything up for you--”

A tiny zipping noise is all the warning you get before Zebruh sways and sinks to the ground, a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his neck. 

Something pinches your side, and you follow his example, hoping that the others are doing better than you are. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot is getting SPICY! 
> 
> Also, to clear some things up: Marvus, Chahut, Skylla, Nihkee, and Vikare are all out in space. We'll see them again, just not until WAY later in the story lol. Boldir and Fozzer are both dead as doorknobs. That doesn't mean they won't be important parts of the story, though!


	33. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Part Three

Your name is ARDATA CARMIA and if you get one more blood splatter on your nice new jacket you think you might actually scream. Do people not  _ know  _ how hard it is to get blood out of certain fabrics? Sure, your jacket is leather, but there’s still fabric at the bottom that gives shape to your waist and you don’t want it dirty. If you’re going to be a traitor to the Empire you might as well look good while doing it!

At least Elwurd put you on guard duty so you could take a break and make yourself look presentable again. She’s a rotten punk, but at least she’s a rotten punk with a bloodpusher. You’re glad to have her as a friend (glad to finally have  _ friends!) _ . Maybe after all of this is over you’ll finally be able to convince her to let you take her out to a manicure. 

A muffled groan drags you back to reality, and you look down at the prisoner and kick his shoulder. “Excuse me? Shut up.”

The tealblood-- Tegiri, mumbles something around the gag that’s keeping him from monologuing about his honor or whatever but obeys, slumping back against the table leg he’s been tied to. You’d done the gagging yourself when Goezee failed to mention that this anime-ass looking bastard simply did not. Stop. Talking. Sure, everybody knows teals are chatty, but this fucker took it to a whole new level. He had just gone on and on about upholding the Alternian caste system and the eons of honor that came with it, and then something about Goezee and how she was a traitor and a bitch and how she chose an  _ alien _ over him. 

Then, he started talking shit about Micah and how he was culling their ass on sight the next time they crossed paths, and that was when you had enough and knocked him out so you could gag him. Nobody talks about Micah like that, especially not in front of you. 

“Thank you. A prisoner that runs their mouth is a prisoner that ends up dead,” you remind him sweetly. “I’m sure your little assassin palecrush wouldn’t have minded too much, though. She did choose an alien over you. Really puts things into perspective, huh?”

He glares at you with a fury so intense you’re actually impressed. It takes every bit of self control to not automatically check to see if his sword is still strapped to your hip. The weapon is cheap, but if Tegiri’s an experienced swordstroll than you’d rather be safe than sorry. 

You beam down at him and go back to filing your claws. “I thought so. Then again, Micah’s beloved by so many for a good reason. They changed my mind about a lot of things before they disappeared. Helped me see the moonlight, if you would. For example: did you know that the caste system isn’t just oppressive to lowbloods? For so many years of my life I thought I had to be a monster in order to be respected. To be liked. I hurt so many people. I killed, and tortured, and maimed… for what? Grubtube views? Sure, I got famous, but the cost was too high.”

Tegiri’s staring at you, shredding the carpet with his claws. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look. The old ways are stupid and awful and they need to go. I’ll never be free of what I did, but I guess a small part of me thinks that if I help more people than I hurt, then… things will get easier, I guess? In my pan,” you clarify. “A guilty conscience and good mental health don’t mix well. That’s what Tickmom told me when I was little, except she wanted me to not feel guilty about being a literal serial killer.”

He raises a brow at you, and you can tell what he’s thinking even without using your powers. “Yes, I ran away. I abandoned my lusus to the cruel, harsh world that is this piece of shit floating around in space. And you know what?”

Tegiri doesn’t respond, obviously, so you carry on. “ Growing out of my old self was painful, and it sucked. It still sucks. I’m growing every night into hopefully, a better version of myself than I was the night before. But it’s  _ so _ worth it. I’ve never been more free in my entire life. I have a lot of regrets, but fighting for an Alternia where kids won’t have to suffer under trolls like the person I once was? That will never be one of them.”

<>

Your names are BARZUM and BAIZLI SOLEIL and you are currently both in time-out for trying to run away so you can join the fight again. 

“It was Barzum’s idea,” you tell Dammek as he shoos you and your hatchmate into the backseat of the van. 

“It was both our idea, genius,” Barzum sighs. 

“Fuck off.”

Dammek clicks in the back of his throat to get your attention. “If you two behave you can have grubcream when we’re done here. Gog damn it, where’s a jadeblood when you need one?”

_ “What flavor?” _ you both ask. 

“Don’t  _ do _ that! And whatever we can find! Just… don’t leave the van unless it’s an emergency!” he calls back, already running back towards the brawl in the alleyway. 

You pout. “Awww.”

Baizli sticks her tongue out at you and peers down at the ground through the window. She’s not seeing anything, she’s just bored. The telepathic connection you share is prickling with irritation at being cooped up. Being cooped up is not good. One time, you and your hatchmate were cooped up in a hive, and even though it was big it was still boring and it made you really sad. 

With a huff, you shut off the bad memories before they can make you sad again, with Baizli helping from her end of the connection. 

“I wanna goooooo,” she whines.

“Same,” you say. 

“What if we… but…”

“No. But…”

“Yeah… no. He said…”

“Hmph.”

“Mmrph.”

“... If you break a window I’ll pee in the driver’s seat,” you offer. 

Barzum grins. You clamber on over to the front and psyche yourself up for what you’re about to do (and pray to the Messiahs for forgiveness for your sins) while Barzum feels for the weakest part of the window and cocks his fist back. 

“Do it,” you urge. 

He does it. The sound of shattering glass crackles through the air, loud enough to be painful. You cover your ears with a wince but can’t keep from laughing when you see Barzum fall back with a squeal, clearly not expecting it to be so dang noisy. 

Except he’s not the only one surprised by the noise. 

On the other side of the street is a little purpleblood boy, maybe a sweep older than you and your hatchmate. He’s got a knife in each hand and is braced for a fight, staring at you with wide yellow eyes. 

The tiny clown honks at you in confusion. You hiss back and glare at him over the edge of the now broken window. 

“We can take him,” Baizli assures you. 

“He’s got the stars in his eyes,” you say, because it’s true. You can smell the favor on him from the universe itself. The Messiahs have a plan for this one.

“Yeah. Let’s go say hi!”

Baizli hops out of the driver’s side, and you leap out of the broken window to join her. Carefully, you approach the other clown, not daring to look too closely at what lies within his eyes. 

“Hey, brother,” you offer. 

He chitters and quickly pulls out a slice of compressed tree fabric to show you and Baizli. On it is  _ Hi, my name is Karako Pierot.  _

“Hi, Karako,” Baizli chirps. 

Karako honks again, and you realize that this guy can’t speak. “Holy moly, you’re mute? How haven’t you been culled yet?”

Karako blinks, looking confused, and then just shrugs. 

Baizli considers this, and nods. “Wanna play with us?”

“Honk!”

You grin, and with your new friend in tow, you race off into the city to see what fun you can have during a riot. 

<>

Your name is REMELE NAMAAQ and your matesprit has been arrested. 

Her name, like so many others, is on the list that the Heiress just released and is being continuously updated, growing longer by the moment. It doesn’t belong there. She doesn’t belong there, she belongs here, with  _ you, _ where she’s safe and awful highblood scumbags can’t hurt her! 

_ But where did they take her?  _

A pair of small, warm hands pull worriedly at your sleeve. You look down at Micah, who’s looking up at you sorrowfully, big hazel eyes full of exhaustion. They want to zap into Chixie’s location and get her out. Understandably, Polypa will not let them, because they could be killed instantly on the other side. 

The eight of you are huddled inside a drug store, pressed against the back as far as you all can get from the entrance. Nobody else is inside, as everything’s already been looted from it. Shelves have been knocked over, there’s holes in the walls, and the floor is now decorated with a new bloodstain every other aisle or so. 

“Tagora’s trying to figure out where the prisoners are being kept,” Stelsa tells you as she types furiously at her palmhusk. Tyzias is curled up beside her with her head in her matesprit’s lap, getting some much-needed rest.“They have to release the location to the tealbloods so that the defendants can be assigned legislacerators and they’re not at the usual courthive downtown.”

“So, like… are the drones programmed to carry out the law?” Micah asks. 

“More or less,” says Mallek, who, like Polypa, refuses to leave the alien’s side. It fills you with a sick jealousy that they get to have the people they care about so much with them… and you don’t. “They’ve got the highest form of AI the Empire has to offer. Within the AI is a program that has them figure out which laws apply to what situations depending on whatever they come across. I’ve tried rewriting the coding within to see if I can make them not act on something illegal, but the code fixes itself right away.”

“Once this stupid motherfucker wakes up he can help with that,” Konnyl adds gruffly. She pats Azdaja’s hair, who’s passed out against her thigh. Apparently he collapsed after taking out a whole drone, but you’re kind of on the verge of losing your pan. 

“What’s this got to do with saving Chixie?” you snap. 

“Just wondering if the prisoners’ location is written in the code, since the drones have programming to bring them to a special place,” Micah muses.

Mallek makes a face like he can’t decide if he’s pissed off that somebody else figured out a possible solution before he did or if he wants to have sex with the alien right there and then in the back of an abandoned drug store. “That… could work. It might be hours before getting an answer, though, just so y’all know.”

“Then we’ll keep working on figuring something else out in the meantime,” Stelsa decides. 

“Like using my super helpful spacetime powers to find Chixie’s location,” Micah hints, elbowing Polypa without a hint of subtlety. 

“Absolutely not.”

“No,” Mallek agrees. 

“‘Daja said he thinks the drones are tracking you through the radiation you give off when you teleport. No,” Konyyl concludes. 

They give you a pained look, and you sigh. 

The first time you met Chixie was when she kicked your shins in an attempt to stop you from stealing from another cerulean artist. You thought that you’d be able to get away with it; you’ve gotten away with a lot during your life, even in broad moonlight and surrounded by company. But no, this little bronzeblood who’s probably a better artist than you’ll ever be stood in your way, and even when you shoved past her to get to the exit she kept following you. 

_ “I hate people who steal other people’s hard work!” _

_ “Why don’t you come to lunch with me, then?” _

_ “Excuse me? Take your probably shitty art and shove it up your ass! It’s trolls like you that give us lesser-known artists a bad name!” _

_ “What’s  _ your _ name?” _

_ “Chixie! And yours?” _

_ “Remele. Come on a date with me and I’ll bring this back.” _

_ “... Promise?” _

_ “Sure.” _

And the rest was history. Like a cheesy fanfiction, really. Whoever’s writing the story of your life has a super crappy sense of humor. 

“We need to get back to my apartment ‘cause all of my gear is there.” Mallek whips out his palmhusk and starts texting. “I’m letting the others know what we’re doing. We don’t have a lot of time before the sun comes up, though.”

You glance out of a broken window, where slivers of black sky are visible between skyscrapers. The horizon is still dark, but your internal time-teller is beginning to remind you that dawn is only a few hours away. 

Nobody argues, because only a stupid or insane troll turns away an offer of shelter when they have nowhere else to go. In fact, nobody says a word as you all get your shit ready and head out into the ruined city. 

There isn’t really much to say anymore. 

<>

Your name is ZEBEDE TONGVA and you think you  _ might _ be having some kind of anxiety attack??? You’re not really sure, though. You feel really strung out and you can’t stop shaking. Your bellowsacs are beginning to ache from not getting enough air, because you kind of forgot to breathe for a little bit. Whoops. 

No, you can’t be having an anxiety attack. You’re fine, you’re safe, you’re nowhere near Thrashthrust and everything is going to be fine. 

You make the mistake of glancing at the television and nearly crap yourself when you see the camera zooming in on a squadron of drones laying waste to a neighborhood. 

_ No. _ Acid tract churning with nausea, you stumble out of the living room and down the hallway to your respiteblock. Your ganderbulbs are hot with dismay fluid as your pan replays everything you just saw in terrible, way-too-accurate detail. No matter how hard you shove your face into the carpet, you just keep  _ seeing.  _

You’d known that there’s been a lot more unrest than usual these past few perigees. The Chittr discourse had gotten so bad you actually had to delete the app for a few nights just so you could get some sleep, because everybody was just  _ losing their dang pans _ over this rebellion that was supposedly born in Thrashthrust. It was a frantic social scramble to either pledge allegiance to the Empire and wax mushy-gushy about the Heiress or, in a few select posts, announce that maybe this rebellion thing was  _ good _ for Alternia. 

Most importantly, though, your idol Cirava Hermod hasn’t said anything about it, which might be the only thing keeping you from bloodpusher failure. If they said anything about the rebellion that could be interpreted as even being slightly supportive they would be culled, no questions asked. Or worse, be brought in for interrogation and get tortured to death. 

You know that kind of thing happens more than people let on. You might be young and naive and super awkward, but you’re not  _ stupid.  _

Gog, it spikes your blood pressure just thinking about it all. 

“Bzzzirp?”

A little poke to your cheek almost makes you jump. You release a shaky sigh and reach up to run a finger down Hummingbeedad’s feathery chest. “I’m scared. I know we’re far away and all, but… it feels too real. It shouldn’t be happening! People are d-dying and I can’t do anything-!”

“Bzzirp!”

“... Huh? You think?”

Hummingbeedad chirps again and flutters four of his six pairs of wings against your face, just like he would do to make you laugh when you were a wriggler. Buzzing around your head impatiently as you haul your sorry butt off the floor, he telepathically bombards you with images of trolls fleeing the burning city and making their way out into the desert. You live in the desert. They don’t. They won’t have shelter when the sun comes up.  _ You _ have shelter. 

“I can help,” you say. 

“BZZ!  _ Chirp chirp!” _

You whip around to stare at him. “I-I can help!”

Crap crap crap. You’re going to need medical supplies. You’re going to have to clear out space in the living room in case people actually make it here. 

Your feet are carrying you out to the washblock before you can get overwhelmed, and you find yourself yanking out every first aid kit you own and bringing them out into the kitchen. The dishes are dirty, but that will have to wait until later. Once you get all the magazines off the counter and stored safely in your respiteblock you lay everything out in a row. Each first aid kit gets a hand towel, glass of water, and energy bar. You already have your loungeplank put against the wall in the living room, so you move your gaming chair out of the way as well so there’s more floor space. 

Block by block, you tear through your hive with a ferocity you didn’t think yourself capable of, getting everything ready. For the first time in what feels like sweeps, you are completely driven by a purpose that isn’t just trying to survive. 

Is this what having a real purpose feels like? It’s incredible. You can’t get enough of it. 

Just as the horizon begins to turn from black to grey, your bees start going crazy. Somebody’s coming. They think the newcomer will be here in just a few moments. 

Bloodpusher hammering up into your throat, you fling open the door and race out into the coming dawn. 

You don’t know what you were expecting. Four or five survivors, maybe a lucky couple more just before sunrise. 

But no. Limping toward your home, battered, burnt, and bruised, is no less than  _ thirty trolls. _ It’s not just lowbloods, too. A cerulean and a purpleblood are leaning on each other as they struggle forward, with the cerulean’s right leg obviously broken. An indigo is all but dragging a pair of goldbloods behind them even though he looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. 

And leading the charge is none other than Charun. 

“Dude,” they say once they stagger up to you, sore from the long trek. “You are not gonna fuckin’ believe the night I just had.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALMOST two days in a row! *pops champagne and hits self in the face with cork* 
> 
> The best part of writing this fic is that I live in America and there's literally no shortage of insane shit to draw inspiration from. Last night our current VP debated the new candidate and a fly got stuck in his hair and he didn't even notice. I'm pretty sure the west coast is still on fire. Trump refuses to debate via webcam even though he's still sick from the Corona virus. 210k Americans are dead from the same illness. BLM is still holding protests and lots of cops are still being jackasses. 
> 
> At this point I'd literally rather live on Alternia. Somebody come save me.


	34. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Part Four

Your name is MICAH and at this point the fabric of reality is just straight up doing all sorts of origami. Flashbacks from different timelines are frying your brain from the inside out, most of them not making any sense. Not like anything that’s happening right now makes sense, either, but the fact that you can’t trust your own head isn’t making you feel any better. 

At least it’s distracting you from the real world. You know that the streets you’re walking through with your friends have a few dead bodies here and there, sometimes to the point of having to pick your way around one so you don’t step on some poor kid’s corpse. The pavement is slick with blood in some places and you almost fall over on more than one occasion. It’s all so awful that you think your brain is just… _ refusing _ to process anything, otherwise you’d definitely be having a meltdown. 

You try your hardest not to look, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. Several times you see a troll that looks like they’re Dave and Rose’s age, or catch a glimpse of long, wild black hair like Jade’s, or step over a pair of glasses that fell off somebody’s head that look like they could have belonged to John or Jake, and each time you have to struggle to not collapse on the spot. 

You want to kneel down next to every body you see and hold their hand, close their eyes if they’re still open, tell them they won’t be forgotten. That they were  _ loved, _ maybe not by the society that failed them but by a friend, a quadrant partner, a lusus. For some reason, a little voice keeps telling you that if the last touch they know is that of kindness, then maybe their spirits can move on to wherever they need to go next without grief and resentment. 

That doesn’t make any fucking sense, of course. These kids are dead, some having been gone for hours by now. They won’t know or care if you hold their hand. 

Boldir had said that you wouldn’t be able to save everybody. You hadn’t realized what that entailed up until now. The drones wiped out what feels like half of Thrashthrust, leveled like ten neighborhoods, and took Chixie. Chixie, who is brave and good and kind and didn’t deserve to get thrown into some cell like a criminal. How many of your other friends are still free? How many are _still alive?_

So you just keep going. You hold on tight to Polypa’s hand, and you keep going. 

A noise reaches your ears that almost sounds like your name. It doesn’t occur to you until a few seconds later that it actually is your name. 

“--pa! Micah! Guys!”

You look to where Polypa is looking to see Lanque and Daraya bounding towards you, both looking utterly bewildered and horrified as they look around. 

It’s Daraya who speaks as the lot of you just stare at each other. “Wha-what the fuck  _ happened?  _ This wasn’t… they just killed everybody?”

“Where the hell have you two been? The party’s almost over,” Polypa snorts. Tyzias growls under her breath. 

“There were some… complications… when we tried to leave,” Lanque says quietly, and you know this situation is fucking with him more than he’s letting on when he doesn’t even snap back at her. Wait,  _ complications? _ “I… what do we do now?”

“Going back to my place to figure out where they’re bringing the people they aren’t culling. You guys coming?” Mallek asks tonelessly. 

“... Yes.” Keeping Daraya close to him, Lanque falls in next to you. He makes no smartass remarks about what you’re wearing, doesn’t catch your eye and look away to feign innocence. It’s like you’re walking beside a stranger. 

“Dude, what happened?” you whisper. 

“I’ll explain later.”

You nod, but you think you might already know what went down. They must have been caught while trying to sneak out and now they’re both in deep,  _ deep _ doodoo. 

The shadow of the battleship blocking out the moonlight doesn’t help you feel any better, either, but as you keep heading towards the cerulean part of town the amount of corpses decrease until you can no longer see dead kids laying around like roadkill. Thank fucking God. 

_ What is she waiting for? _ you wonder.  _ It’s been hours. Is she just gonna sit around while we all shit ourselves to death?  _

If the others are thinking the same thing, nobody says it out loud. Everybody files into the elevator once you reach Mallek’s apartment building and silently follows him to his hive. 

Daraya asks if she can use the loadgaper, which Mallek accepts without question. You don’t have stupid good hearing like trolls, but even you can hear her doing everything she can to muffle her sobs once she locks the door behind her. She’s going to be scarred for life. 

You all are. 

“Okay,” Mallek says as he herds everybody into his respiteblock, graciously ignoring Daraya while she gets it all out on the toilet. “Stelsa, Tyzias. What are the locations of every jail in the Thrashthrust area?”

“Gimme a pen and something to write on.” Tyzias takes the offered pen and paper from Mallek and begins writing with a lot more force than what is strictly necessary. Stelsa does the same with another pen, muttering something about the two courthives in Thrashthrust, one in the north and one in the south. 

Mallek sits down and gets to work on his computers, flying through different screens at a speed that no human would be able to keep up with. 

This goes on for several minutes before he sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands before getting back to it. “Look, I can’t concentrate with you all here. I know tonight fucking sucked more than anything, so you all just… find somewhere to shut your eyes or whatever. This is gonna take a while, so might as well get some rest. It’s almost morning.”

Remele stiffens, looking like she wants to argue, but Stelsa gently guides her out of the respiteblock while Tyzias makes a beeline for the bathroom to comfort Daraya. Konyyl heads back down the stairs with Azdaja in her arms to lay him down on the couch. Whatever he had done to channel the power of the Green Sun from you into his psionics, it had totally wiped him out. Once he wakes up you’re going to yell at him and then cry so he feels  _ extra  _ guilty. 

Lanque glances back at Polypa and shoos you towards the door as well. “I need to borrow your moirail for a few. Thanks.”

She blinks a few times, but stands down when you give her a look. “I… yeah, sure.” 

_ Wow, and they didn’t even try to kill each other. _

You let him herd you into the room with the medicalizer that fixed your ribs and shut the door behind you. 

The second you’re alone he just… lays down on the carpet. 

“I think I might have destroyed any chance of ever getting back in Ursama’s good graces,” he tells you calmly. 

“You fucking what?”

“We were trying to sneak out and Bronya caught us. She refused to let us go, and everybody was watching, so I told Daraya to run and she… she attacked me.” He swallows, staring up at the ceiling. “I fought her off, but… damn, she’s never put her hands on me like that before. Didn’t think she had it in her. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we return.”

“She fucking  _ what?” _

He starts laughing as you sit down next to him. It’s a low, rough chuckle from deep in his chest and it sounds like it hurts. “I’m such a piece of shit. Why am I telling you this right now? Everything has gone to hell and I’m bitching to somebody else’s moirail in one of my old hookup’s hive.”

“I’ll talk to Bronya,” you promise him, wondering if this night could get any more insane. Sweet, kind, mature Bronya, starting fights? “She actually attacked you? The hell?”

“To be fair, I did get in her way.”

“You’re not injured, are you?”

“You offering to patch up my wounds, darling?”

“If you have any.” You cross your arms and glare down at him, gladly accepting this new round of chicken in the game that is your and Lanque’s… relationship. 

The green of his irises twinkle, and it’s muted but you finally see the Lanque you know and want to smack again. He hauls himself upright so he’s facing you. “You flatter me. But I’m fine.”

“... If you say so.”  _ Stay on topic, dingus. _ “Do you think that there might be other jades who’d be interested in joining the rebellion?”

He shrugs. “Who knows. If Bronya doesn’t flay me open from ass to horns when I go back maybe we could find out.”

“I won’t let her flay you.” You reach up to pat his upper arm. It’s easy to let his domineering presence chase away the awfulness of everything that’s happened, easy to let his smell fill your lungs with starlight and leather and moss--

_ Oh. _ Oh, dang, he’s looking you in the eye now. Just don’t think about what happened at the party and you’ll be fine. Don’t think about it. Sloppy interspecies makeouts? You don’t know her. In fact, you don’t even know what party you’re even thinking about. 

Okay, you really gotta say something now. “So, uh, do you wear Old Spice--”

_ Knock knock knock. _ “Micah? When you two are done talking there’s something you should know. It’s important.”

“Coming Polypa!” you yelp, flinching so hard you almost pull something in your neck. You spring to your feet and turn to run out the door, except that’s when you roll your ankle, almost sending you face-first into the wall. “Ow, fuck me! Bye, Lanque, I promise everything’s gonna be okay, drink water, uhhh… yeah! See ya!”

You all but fall out of the block and into Polypa’s arms. 

She stares down at you. 

You stare up at her. “Hi. What’s up?”

“... I had to save Tegiri from getting killed by three wrigglers and now he’s at one of Dammek’s hideouts because we took him prisoner.”

“I…” You try and make sense of what she just told you. Literally, if anything else happens, ever, you’re going to pull out your kidneys with a pair of chopsticks. “The fuck? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. Pissed and tried to attack me and the cerulean girls, but fine.”

“Um, what are we going to do with him?”

Polypa takes your hand and leads you downstairs to the kitchen. She fills up two cups with water and hands one to you. You wish that it was something a little stronger, because it’s beginning to dawn on you that you might lose not one, but  _ two _ more friends. You’ve been lying to Bronya to cover for Lanque and Daraya, and you’ve lied to Tegiri to cover for Polypa, and you’re lying to all of them because you’re not telling them about who-slash-what you really are and everything you’ve done to try and rewrite history. 

All you ever do is lie. 

She slams the cup down on the counter. You flinch. “Dude--”

“I can’t hate him for it, Micah. At all. We’ve been friends for  _ sweeps, _ and no matter what it takes I’m not going to give up on him. He has it out for me right now, but I’m going to make him see why we all deserve better than what we’ve been given,” she growls. She’s quiet; Azdaja and Konyyl are nearby in the living room. 

“Then I won’t give up on him, either,” you agree. 

Polypa sighs. “There’s something I need to tell you, something that I’ve needed to tell you for awhile now.”

“Yeah?”

“Tegiri and I hung out a while ago and… he said he’s pale for me.”

The last words were said so fast and so quietly that you almost don’t hear them. 

Then it hits you. “Oh,  _ damn!” _

Polypa looks so horrendously guilty that you physically feel yourself cringe as well. You now totally understand why she’s been so distant recently, and it makes you hurt to know that she’s been shouldering that burden all by herself. It must have taken so much courage to come to you, her actual moirail, about this mess. 

You might not be well-versed in the intricacy that is troll romance, but you’re not stupid, either. You’ve seen the way they looked at each other before this shitshow happened. 

_ Oh, boy. _

“Polypa,” you say gently. “Are you pale for him, too?”

She recoils like she’s been hit, and boom, there it is. 

“Oohhhhh, that’s  _ rough, _ buddy,” you wheeze, bending over to slap your thigh. “You’re getting all the hoes, though, so it’s probably not too bad. Are assassins considered sexy on Alternia? ‘Cause that’s kinda the vibe I’ve been getting.”

“Y… You’re not mad?” she chokes. 

You blink up at her, confused. “Uh, why would I be mad? Being pale doesn’t mean the same thing in human terms than it does in troll terms, so, uh… yeah.”

“You’re sure?”

_ “Yes, _ dude. I would be kind of a hypocrite if I got all pissy over you feeling this way about Tegiri when I’m the biggest pale slut this planet has ever seen.”

“... But you’re human. It’s different.”

“Exactly!”

You think she’s starting to get it when she releases some of the tension she’s holding in her body, like she was bracing herself for an attack. She looks like she’s about to pass out from relief. Testing her limits, you reach out for her, and when she doesn’t lean away you pap her. 

“I just needed you to know in case we all die tomorrow. Or something,” she mumbles. 

“Nobody’s gonna die, Polypa. I promise.” 

You two hug it out, and you happily bury your face into her mane of thistle-feather black hair. Maybe everything is terrible right now, but at least you have your assassin girlfriend with you. 

“I’ll always love you. Even if your taste in boys sucks,” you tell her. 

She stiffens with a wheeze. “Oh,  _ my _ taste in boys is bad?”

Oh, shit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Once we get some actual privacy we’re going to have a  _ talk, _ Micah.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you mumble, but she’s not buying it. You let her drag you over to the couch, where Azdaja is half-conscious and nursing an energy drink. The two of you curl up at the other end, but not before you give him a good kick in the shins. 

“Don’t ever pull that shit again,” you growl. He flips you off and soon goes back to sleep. 

It takes just a few minutes for you to do the same. 

:::

You’re woken up the next afternoon to both Mallek gently shaking your shoulder and the blazing Alternian sun stabbing its blinding death rays right into your eye sockets. 

“Found it,” he whispers. 

At first you don’t know what he’s talking about, but then the events of the previous night come rushing back and you instantly sit straight up. “Where?”

He motions for you to follow him. Disentangling yourself from Polypa, you step over Tyzias and Stelsa, hop around Remele, and almost trip on Daraya as you make your way over to the stairs. Everybody seems to have taken up camp in the living room, which makes sense considering it’s the cleanest part of Mallek’s hive. 

Blown up on one of his monitors is a blurry image of some compound, and tacked on to the wall above it is a map of the entire region. The city of Thrashthrust is circled in black with a red string taped to it. Following the string with your eyes, you see that it lands on a spot some ways out into the desert. 

“Is that it?” you ask. 

“Yep.” Mallek sits down heavily, scrubbing his face. He looks completely exhausted. “If we take a scuttlebuggy it would still take us half the night just to get there.”

“Scuttlebuggy? I can just--”

“We can’t. Konyyl told me about Azdaja’s theory about you being radioactive after the rest of you went to sleep and I decided to see if any of my instruments could detect you. They all could. You light up like a damn nuclear blast. That’s how the drones kept coming after you and the others during the riot,” he growls. 

_ “What?” _ You can’t believe what you’re hearing. “So, what am I supposed to do? Not teleport anymore? I kind of have friends who need me in the future.”

“As long as you don’t do it near my hive,” he mutters, and you feel a surge of guilt when you realize he’s losing patience. The bags under his eyes are so dark he looks like a zombie. Mallek’s an insomniac, but this is bad even for him. 

You wrap an arm around his shoulders and rest your head against his. “I won’t.” 

“Thanks. Listen, dude, I…” He turns to look at you. “I’m really sorry. I’m going to help you guys with rescuing the prisoners, but after that… I just… I can’t be a part of the rebellion anymore. It’s too fucking much.”

You blink, wondering if you got hit in the head or something. “I-I’m sorry?”

“I can’t do it anymore. Those dead kids, Micah, I keep  _ seeing _ them!” he spits. 

“You’re…” You feel like you’ve just been sucker punched. “You’re leaving us? But you said you were glad you joined! You want a better future for Alternia!”

“I do! But I don’t want to die! Maybe I’m a coward, but I’d rather be a living coward than a dead rebel,” Mallek admits. 

_ I’m going to lose my fucking mind. _ “So you’re giving up.”

“Yeah.”

“Deadass.”

“Yep.”

You rip away from him and glare at him with an anger so intense you feel fire in your veins. The familiar feeling of  _ this can’t be happening _ doubles, triples. “You’re shitting me. You think I’m brave, Mallek? You think I’m strong? Well, I’m  _ not! _ But I keep on going, because I love this shithole of a planet more than  _ you’ve _ ever loved anything!”

“You _ are  _ strong!” he shouts, exploding to his feet with a snarl. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met! That’s why you’re able to keep going. I’m not strong. I  _ know _ that. Just let me stay out of your way so you guys can save the world!”

You laugh so you don’t cry. “You want to stay out of the way so we can save the planet  _ you _ live on… boy, ain’t that fuckin’ hilarious. What happened to you? You used to be one of the baddest motherfuckers in Thrashthrust.”

“Maybe you just didn’t know me that well.”

“Guess I didn’t,” you agree harshly. 

“And I guess I didn’t know you that well, either, because I thought you’d be a little more understanding than this! What happened to  _ you,  _ Micah? I didn’t even know you could be like this!” Mallek yells back. 

“Newsflash, pal! The old me was under the influence of an evil god! The real me actually has the agency to get pissed off at  _ stupid little boys _ who are so priviledged they think they can just not choose sides in a literal  _ civil war!” _ you shriek. 

He peels back his lips to reveal jagged fangs. _ “Watch me!” _

“No! Go fuck yourself!” You turn and storm out of the room. 

He’s right behind you, pulling you back by your turtleneck before you can go rejoin your real friends. You screech something truly foul at him and go for the old shin-destroyer, but he knows your tricks and dodges. The both of you stumble back into the doorway, glaring at each other, and you’re  _ this _ close to going apeshit on him like you did with Bro Strider. 

“Please don’t go on the rescue mission. Something bad’s gonna happen, I just know it,” he pleads, voice hoarse. 

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Micah--”

“You can’t stop me from doing the right thing!”

“Don’t you get it? You don’t have to be the hero all the time! You can still be good and not risk your life,” Mallek reasons desperately. 

_ I literally cannot die even if I wanted to!  _ You swallow back the lump in your throat and step away. “I’m not a hero, Mallek. I’m not even a good person.”

Before he can yell at you again you scramble down the stairs, mutter something to a wide-eyed Polypa about meeting her outside, and leave Mallek behind for good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play a game! It's called "How Many Friends is Micah Gonna Lose By the End of This Story?"


	35. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's show time, motherfuckers!

You can’t actually leave the building yet because the sun is still up, so you can’t make the dramatic exit you were intending on doing, which only pisses you off even more as you sulk around the lobby. One little voice in your mind is telling you to get back up there and apologize to Mallek. The other keeps saying not to bother. 

Why are you like this? Never in your life have you  _ ever _ screamed at another person, not even at Doc Scratch. You’re turning into something unrecognizable, something that scares you. You want to claw the darkness out of your chest even if it takes your heart along with it. 

Rose’s lecturing comes back to you then, gentle but firm.  _ “Symptoms of PTSD include depression, anxiety, paranoia, irritability, and mood swings. Everybody responds to trauma differently, Micah.” _

“I’m a fucking wreck,” you tell the empty space in front of you. 

“It’s not your fault.”

You groan as Polypa’s strong hand clasps your shoulder and pulls you back to her. “It kind of is, though. Just saying.”

She wraps her arms around you and hugs you close. You want to cry, to relieve more of that pressure that keeps on building inside your body, but you can’t no matter how hard you try. 

Then you see the others waiting by the elevator, and you decide it’s for the best that you can’t cry at the moment. Yeah, you’ve sunk to lower than you’ve ever gone before, but you still haven’t cried in front of Lanque yet besides that one time at a party where you got sloppy drunk and he had to hold your hair back while you threw up and sobbed into the toilet bowl, and you sure as hell aren’t going to start now. That time didn’t count, because he started throwing up right after you were done and then you had to help  _ him, _ so you two called it even after that. 

“When Micah’s done having a mental breakdown can we get food?” Azdaja asks. Konyyl swats him upside the head and rolls her eyes. 

“I already had a mental breakdown earlier, I’m hungry,” Daraya agrees. 

You snort into Polypa’s collarbone, glad that you have friends who are at least somewhat as fucked up as you are. “It won’t be dark for another couple of hours. We should probably--”

_ Knock-knock.  _

Everybody jumps about a foot in the air, yourself included, and spins around to look out the lobby window. 

Outside the heavily tinted glass is a silhouette of somebody in a sunsuit, covered from head to toe in thick, ultraviolet-resistant material. They point at you guys and wave, gesturing for all of you to follow them. You don’t recognize the shape of their horns at all. 

“The fuck?” Tyzias mutters. 

“They seriously can’t expect us to just walk out into the sun,” Polypa growls. 

Lanque strides towards the door. “I’ll go.”

You almost run after him before you remember that jadebloods have an immunity to Alternian sunlight. Hell, Kanaya is almost as diurnal as you are. It’s interesting how the caste that spends most of their life underground is the only one that can withstand being outside during the day, you think. 

Still, you watch nervously as he cracks open the door and squeezes outside, letting in a blast of hot air that feels like it burns your eyebrows off upon impact. Daraya waits just inside the lobby, ready to jump out after him if your new pal here tries anything funny. 

But it seems like that isn’t the case. Lanque and the other troll exchange a few words, and then he slips back inside and nods. “One of Dammek’s freedom fighters. She wants to take us to him.”

“You’re sure?” Daraya asks nervously. 

“Well, it’s not like we have anywhere else to go, is there?”

Remele huffs her way over to them, ears flat. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is. We won’t get anything done if we wait until nightfall.”

You all look at each other. Tyzias is the first to move, with Stelsa right beside her, and then everybody follows after. The display of trust warms your battered heart, even if it’s probably just because there aren't many other choices. 

Fear strikes a stake right into your gut as the heat grows more and more intense as you approach the open door. Lanque throws his jacket over you, holding you tight against his side, and Polypa presses against your other shoulder to shield you from the inferno you’re about to step into. 

It still burns like hell, though. You throw an arm up to shield your face when the heat just about cooks your eyeballs out of their sockets. It’s bright, too, much brighter than you’re used to on a nocturnal planet. Your lungs feel like they’re cooking when you make the mistake of breathing, burning like you just sucked in a metric fuckton of mustard gas. 

The rest of your friends curse and hobble their way over to where the rebel chick supposedly is out in the street. If any drones come by, you’re screwed, so you do your best to hurry it up without dying of heat stroke. 

“Watch your step,” a female voice says. Metal creaks. Somebody hisses as if they were burned. 

Polypa grabs your hand. “We gotta go down.”

_ “Down? _ What the heck is down?” you mutter nervously, but you don’t resist when she guides your hand to what feels like a railing. Are you climbing down a manhole? Trollhole? Actually, no, that sounds wrong. 

The temperature drops into something much more tolerable as you make your way into the ground, and you’re finally able to open your eyes again. 

You glance down over Tyzias’s head to see a large sewage tunnel, with the others waiting at the bottom. One rung after the other, you keep on going, until you hit the end of the ladder and hop on to solid ground. 

The light dims as the girl seals the cover shut, plunging everything into darkness. You grab Polypa as you hear her climb down, not letting go even when she turns on a flashlight and pulls off her helmet. 

She’s young, maybe around fourteen in human years. A burgundy bandana around her neck is the only indicator that she’s a rustblood. The still-healing cut on her cheek tells you she’s one of the rebel fighters, even if her face is still baby-soft with youth. 

“The sewer system runs all over the city, but that’s not where the rest of us went. Before I take you anywhere, I need to know that you are who you say you are,” she says coolly. 

Lanque snorts. “What, the alien isn’t enough proof?”

You swat him. “Let her do what she needs to do, asswipe.”

“Any one of you could be Empire sympathizers and that’s not a risk we can afford to take at the moment,” the rustblood explains, not fazed in the slightest. 

Tyzias steps forward. “You need to look into somebody’s pan?”

“That would be preferable, if you’re willing to comply.”

“Bet. Not my fault if you see stuff not kid-friendly, though,” she says dryly. 

The rustblood girl just sighs and puts her palm on Tyzias’s forehead. Tyzias’s expression goes perfectly blank. 

It takes less than a minute, but it feels like years before the younger troll pulls back and calls down the tunnel, “They’re clear!”

Two figures step out from around the bend. At the same time, you feel spacetime seize again, making your vision go spotty with colors you didn’t even know existed. 

When you can focus again they’re much closer. You recognize these guys. 

“So,” Dammek says, whipping off his shades and extending a hand.  _ “You’re _ the alien, huh?”

<>

Your name is FOLKYL DARANE and you’ve been thinking about a lot of shit recently. 

You, Kuprum, and Marsti got the hell out of Thrashthrust when things went south. And by south, you mean your lusus getting fucking shot to death by a drone while she tried to hold it off while you and the trolls most important to you escaped out the back. 

She’s gone. Maybe you’re in shock, or know and accept that she was one bad bitch who wouldn’t have gone out any other way, but you honestly… aren’t that sad? Damn, you sound fucked up when you say that.

_ She’s gone, idiot. They murdered isopodmom and now she’s never coming back.  _

Nope. You don’t feel anything. The nook-munching frick is this?

Kuprum and Marsti have tried to talk to you a few times already, but you just… responded normally, like you’re fine, and now the three of you are just chilling in the living room of some little goldblood dude who’s running around like a cluckbeast that got its head cut off. He’s helping everybody who needs it, and if you didn’t despise younger kids maybe it would actually be kinda cute. 

“-- I don’t get it.” Kuprum’s voice brings you back to reality as you realize you’ve been quiet for, like, ten minutes. “What’s she  _ waiting for? _ It’s been friggin’ forever!”

He’s talking about Trizza. Because of course he is. 

“Eager to watch her commit mass murder, are we?” Marsti drawls. 

Kuprum freezes. “I… she’s the Heiress. She’ll do what she needs to do to get everything back on track,” he mumbles. You hear him rub his burnt right arm, where a drone’s laser almost seared the whole appendage right off. He’s got a broken leg, too, from saving Marsti from the business end of a culling fork. 

“Like killing people’s lusii,” somebody says. Oh, wait, that was you. 

Kuprum stiffens but tries to stay brave. He’s always stayed brave, no matter what. “Fol, I’m sorry about what happened to isopodmom. It was real fucked up. I swear, the next time I see one of those protestors--”

“Those protestors didn’t kill her. Drones did. And they were gonna kill me, too, because I’m fucking crippled, you retard,” you wheeze. You’re laughing, too, or at least you think you are until you feel hot liquid running down your cheeks. Everything hurts from the inside out. You wanna go home. 

“I-I would have protected you,” he protests weakly. 

“Just shut up,” Marsti growls. You feel her beside you, lean and strong, coiled up like a noodlebeast about to strike. 

“Don’t tell me to shut up, you shit-scrubbing-!”

Your soul just about leaves your body as everybody’s palmhusks goes off all at the same time. Several people yelp and try to silence the blaring emergency alerts, but it’s useless. The television turns itself on, also broadcasting that gogdamn beeping tone that makes you want to claw out your earsponges. 

“CITIZENS OF ALTERNIA. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST ALERT AS AUTHORIZED BY HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS TRIZZA TETHIS. ALL RESIDENTS OF THE THRASHTHRUST AREA ARE OBLIGED BY LAW TO LISTEN TO THIS MESSAGE IN ITS ENTIRETY.”

The hive is now dead silent. 

“AS OF THE PREVIOUS NIGHT, THE CITY OF THRASHTHRUST WAS BESIEGED BY A VIOLENT REBEL FACTION, CAUSING BILLIONS IN PROPERTY DAMAGE AND ATTACKING DRONES. IF YOU OR YOUR ALLIES KNOW OF ANY TROLLS WHO MIGHT BE IN LINE WITH THESE CRIMINALS, PLEASE CALL THIS NUMBER: 56-0-8-5-92363-1. ANY RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN THAT PROVIDES ENOUGH INFORMATION TO LEAD TO AN ARREST OR CULL WILL BE REWARDED HANDSOMELY. THIS IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE.”

“Holy shit,” somebody whispers. 

“CITIZENS ARE ALSO ADVISED TO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR AN EXTRA-ALTERNIAN BEING THAT HAS RETURNED AFTER HAVING BEEN THOUGHT DEAD FOR APPROXIMATELY SIX PERIGEES. THIS CREATURE HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS BEING SMALL AND PHYSICALLY HARMLESS, WITH A PALE COMPLEXION AND DECEPTIVELY NON-THREATENING APPEARANCE. HOWEVER, IT WAS RECENTLY OBSERVED TO POSSESS A NUMBER OF UNNATURAL ABILITIES THAT ARE STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION. UNTIL THIS CREATURE CAN BE BROUGHT UNDER PROPER SURVEILLANCE, IT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED DANGEROUS FOR THE SAFETY OF YOU AND YOUR ALLIES. STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS AND ALERT THE PROPER AUTHORITIES IF SPOTTED.”

In the kitchen, you hear the goldblood kid choke out a tearful gasp. 

“THE PUNISHMENT FOR ALL CONFIRMED REBEL FIGHTERS WILL BE EXECUTION. NO TRIALS WILL BE PERMITTED FOR THOSE CONSIDERED GUILTY OF TREASON. NO EXCEPTIONS WILL BE MADE. GO FORTH AND BRING HONOR TO YOUR EMPIRE, LOYAL CITIZEN.”

And then it’s over. 

A shocked silence deafens you, threatening to crush everybody inside the hive. You hear the kid freaking out, the indigo boy nearby demanding that everybody stay calm, some oliveblood joyfully yelling that  _ they’re alive, Micah’s alive! _

You feel Marsti turn to Kuprum. “You jinxed it.”

<>

You’re not sure what you were expecting when Dammek and Xefros led you and the others deeper into the ground, but it definitely wasn’t  _ this.  _

“How--?” Remele splutters as the tunnel widens, and then opens up entirely into a cavern that has apparently been turned into a base for the freedom fighters. It’s not as grand as the jades’ mountain, but it’s easily big enough for the couple hundred trolls that have set up camp inside. Fires light up the settlement, with younger kids huddled around them for warmth while the teenagers and young adults patch up wounds and train with their fellow rebels. 

Dammek sees your amazement as well. “Pretty cool, right? Xef and I discovered these tunnels sweeps ago. They run under the surface out into the desert in all directions. We think they were dug during the first rebellion, because we found a ton of old weapons and shit in the bunkers. There’s also these giant vacuum pumps that funnel in air from the surface.”

“Well, the air’s from the sewers, but it’s better than nothing!” Xefros says sheepishly. 

“Holy  _ shit. _ This place is hundreds of sweeps old,” Tyzias mumbles as she looks around. “How did you even get the pumps working?”

“A few goldblood pals of mine gave it some juice. They’re old as fuck but hey.”

Daraya and Lanque both look a bit apprehensive, though. You nudge Lanque, concerned. 

He steps forward, arms crossed. “Look, I’ve lived in a cave all my life, so when I say that this place is on the verge of collapsing…”

You turn to look up at him. “It’s gonna fucking  _ what.” _

Xefros’s cheerful demeanor turns to horror. Everybody else in the group stiffens.

Dammek scowls at him. “Look, we wouldn’t have brought everybody down here if we thought we had another choice. It’s gonna have to do until Trizza gets off our asses.”

“If she tries to bomb us out we’re all going to get crushed.”

“If we go back up we’ll get culled by the drones. We got kids here, man.”

Lanque’s scowl deepens, his gaze boring past him and flitting over some younger trolls sitting by the nearest bonfire. You know that as much as he hates being forced to work in the jades’ caverns, he does really care about children. It’s in the way he holds Wanshi when she gets tired, how he looks out for Daraya when he thinks nobody else is watching, or when he listens patiently to Karako even when the kid isn’t making a whole lot of sense. It’s one of the many things you love about him. 

Wait, what are you guys talking about? 

“Until we figure out what to do next, we’re staying here,” Dammek is saying. “It’s held this long, it’ll hold a little while longer.”

Lanque scoffs. “Sure. I’ll stay near the teleporting alien in the meantime.”

“You do that.”

Daraya clears her throat. “Hey, guys? How far do the tunnels go out into the desert?”

Xefros wrings his hands, nervous. “About fifty miles.”

“Is there a map we could look at?”

“Yeah. Why?”

It’s Tyzias who answers this time. “We know where the prisoners are being kept. It’s way out in the desert, twenty-six miles as the direraven flies. If a tunnel passes close by the compound, we could use it to get there without being seen by the drones.”

Dammek and Xefros look at each other, and then back at Tyzias. 

“Show us,” Dammek orders. 

You all follow them down a passageway and into another cavern, this one about the size of two large classrooms put together. On the wall opposite the door is a map of the entire tunnel system, and you have to stop and take it all in for a second, because holy  _ crap _ this place really is massive. There’s at least two dozen major tunnels in all, spreading out from the center cavern like a starfish. Many other minor caves and troll-made tunnels are labeled in red. 

You’re hit with the thought that maybe you’re standing where the Sufferer himself once stood many, many sweeps ago. If the old rebellion really did make these tunnels, then it’s definitely a possibility. 

“This is every part of the system we have labeled so far,” Xefros explains, tossing Tyzias a marker as she zooms in on something on her palmhusk. 

Dammek pulls out a chair, kicks up his feet, and gives you a look you’ve been given countless times since coming to Alternia, like  _ I really have no idea what to make of this little fucker. _ “So, alien. How far can you teleport and how many people can you bring with you?”

“Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, have I?” you realize. “My name’s Micah. And, uh, I can go anywhere as long as I have a clear idea of the place or person where I want to be. Otherwise I just end up wherever and that could be dangerous at the moment. The biggest group I’ve ever teleported was, uh… nine? That was kind of iffy, though.”

“So if we spit up a few squads into groups of nine or ten and I showed you a picture of where you need to go, you can get everybody over there?”

“Yep.”

He grins like if Cruella de Vill got an all-expenses paid shopping trip to the Humane Society.  _ “Perfect.  _ No idea what the compound is gonna be like or what defensive measures it’ll have, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get there. I’ll get you guys some gear, and then you can all go sleep until I send somebody to get your asses, cool?”

“Oh, boy,” you mutter. 

There’s a general grumble of agreement, with Lanque and Daraya both testing the sturdiness of the door frame as you follow them out. You’re exhausted in every way possible, and yet when you and the others all get blankets and choose a place to crash until the sun goes down you have difficulty falling asleep. Strange, barely-processed memories flit around behind your eyes, like something’s trying to break through. 

Eventually, though, you fall asleep to Tyzias’s steady snores and the crackling of the fire. 

_ Tonight is going to suck.  _


	36. The Fall of Thrashthrust, Finale

Your name is ZEBRUH CODAKK and you have  _ never  _ been arrested before. Not once! Always a model citizen, you. Not even a single parking ticket. Helping elderly lusii across the street and picking up litter and all that good stuff. 

Now look at you. 

“So, ah,” you begin, clasping your hands over your chest and staring up at the ceiling of your cell. You think those dark spots might be mold. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Chixie agrees calmly. 

You glance over at her, look back up at the ceiling, and then do a double-take. “Um, sweetheart? You’re not… panicking.”

“Nope. I’ve already accepted death. I did my best while I was free and fighting for the rebellion, and if it’s time now then that’s fine.”

The two of you are laying side by side on the flimsy mattress on the floor, pressed close together because it’s cold even for you in this dank ass building. Because of this, you can feel her pulse, beating slow and steady like a drum. She doesn’t shiver or hyperventilate. It’s kind of scaring you, because  _ hello, _ look at where you are! 

“... Is it really that easy for you?” you dare to ask. 

She sighs. “I’m a lowblood, Codakk. Death is never too far away. That’s the first thing we learn, you know.”

“How do you live if you’re always preparing to die?”

She looks at you, meeting your eyes with a shadowy exhaustion that makes something in your chest ache. Neither of you say anything more about that subject, but you know what she would have said anyways. 

“No regrets or anything?” you venture. 

“Damn, you ask a lot of questions.”

“Sorry. I’ve never tried to learn anything about anyone else before and I’m really bad at it.”

She’s silent for a moment, and then she rolls over to face you. Dismay fluid trickles down her pretty, tired face, and it hurts to watch her cry more than anything else. “I want my lusus.”

“Me too. He’d beat my ass once he found out I went full vigilante mode, though.”

“I--” Chixie covers her mouth and wheezes out a laugh, shoulders shaking. “Sorry, I don’t know why that was funny.”

You have to muffle your snorts into your sleeve. “Once we all get to the afterlife you’re just going to see a striped hoofbeast just absolutely going to town on me. Did you ever see that Grubtube video of that hoofbeast picking up that purrbeast by the scruff and just  _ yeeting _ it? That’s gonna be me--”

_ “Pff-fftt-!” _

And then the both of you are laughing so hard no sound is coming out, and you’re holding on to her while she smacks your shoulder repeatedly. You cough into the blanket you and Chixie were given to try and muffle the noise, but unfortunately the cell you’re in has great acoustics. Why are you like this? How have you lived your whole life as a complete  _ idiot-- _

A hiss comes from the cell across from yours. “Are you two having fun?”

_ “I think I’m having a mental breakdown, fuck off,” _ Chixie whisper-screams back. 

“I’m gonna shit,” you giggle. 

“Not on me-!”

“OCCUPANTS OF CELL H-42. YOU WILL CEASE COMMUNICATION AT ONCE OR BE BROUGHT OUT FOR CULLING.”

The two of you shut up so fast you hear the echo of your own voice off the walls. You cling to each other in the dark, staring at each other with wide eyes, until enough time passes to where you feel like it’s okay to move again. 

“We’re getting out of here,” you mouth. 

She shakes her head.  _ How? _

You unzip your jacket, digging around until you feel what you’re looking for, and pull it out. 

Chixie looks confused; she doesn’t know what it is. 

“Electromagnetic grenade,” you whisper. “I only have one because the rest of my shit got taken during the strip search. If somebody with psionic abilities were to amplify its effects when exploded, however… it might be enough to stop a drone, at least for a few minutes.”

Something in those lovely dark eyes flickers before fading out. “I don’t have any powers.”

“Then we’ll just have to ask around.”

“Codakk--”

Before you can lose courage you roll off the mattress and slink over to the cell door. Peering out through the bars, you can see into the shadows of the cell across from you-- a rust and a gold. 

_ Perfect.  _

You clear your throat. Nothing. 

You do it again. This time, the rust looks up at you, visibly annoyed, and you hold up the grenade and point to the goldblood. 

He sits up straighter and kicks the gold. She grunts before seeing what you’ve got. Your eyes meet, tentative. You mime pulling at it and an explosion, point to her and back at the grenade, and gesture what you hope she can tell is an even bigger explosion. 

She jabs a thumb to her left, where the drone’s automated voice had come from. You wince and shrug, tapping your wrist to remind her there’s not a lot of time left before they inevitably start pulling people out to be killed. 

The rust holds up a hand. You nod. He puts his thumb down, then his pointer finger, then his middle, then his ring… 

_ Three, two, one.  _

“For the revolution,” you snarl, and you pull the pin. 

<>

It’s time. 

Sixty-three trolls and yourself are racing in the darkness, Lanque and Daraya in the lead as they expertly guide everybody through tunnel after tunnel, figuring out which path is the safest with nothing more than a couple knocks to the walls. There are no visible distinctions between caste, gender, age; everybody wears all black, everybody carries some sort of weapon to fight with. Nobody says a word. The only sounds are the crunch of dirt under combat boots and sneakers, the soft huffs of breathing under bandanas. 

You’ve brought everybody as close to the prison compound as you could, which ended up being half a mile away. Now, the final stretch is being made on foot, and there’s no turning back now. 

In the hour of midnight, history is about to be made. 

Daraya turns to turn her flashlight on and off several times, letting the rest of you know that you’re getting close. The rebellion slows its pace. 

You and all of the others in front silently part to let the goldbloods through. In a brilliant display of lights like those at a party, they hit the ceiling of the tunnel with their psionics to cut their way to the surface. The rest of you stand back to avoid the bits of superheated rock that get flung around by the blasts. 

In less than a minute, the soil gives way to reveal a patch of the night sky. You can see the stars, shockingly bright in the absence of the moons. 

A wave of fresh air rolls through the tunnel, making you shiver. The desert gets chilly once the sun goes down, with no vegetation or clouds to keep the heat from dissipating. 

Azdaja climbs his way up after the tunnel cools and hardens. Carefully, he pokes his head out to look around. 

He freezes in place. 

“What?” Konyyl hisses, but he motions for her to be quiet. 

The trolls must be hearing something you can’t, because in a matter of seconds everybody is in a fighting stance and ready to go. 

_ BLAM! _ Glass shatters somewhere in the distance. 

“The prisoners are already trying to escape!  _ Let’s go, people, let’s go!”  _ Dammek bellows, and everything goes to hell all at once. You hear several people swearing up a storm as the rebel fighters surge forward as one. 

Zapping out of the way to let people by, you find yourself above ground, staring out at a building a thousand feet away or so. Oh, hey, some of it is on fire. 

“Come on!” Polypa grabs your hand, and then you’re both charging the compound together alongside your friends, your family.

There isn’t a lot you think about as you sprint the last five hundred feet, but you do know that no matter what happens tonight, you’re so glad you made it this far. This is a world worth fighting for, and that knowledge is comforting in the way it keeps you grounded to reality. 

The lowblooded trolls are the first ones up the barbed wire fence surrounding the facility, using their psionics to boost themselves and others up. A couple of larger trolls yank the wire down and away so that others can safely cross. The crowd funnels, directing the powerful river as sirens begin to blare. 

A rebel you don’t know reaches a door on one side of the prison first and rips it clean off, only to get nearly trampled as no less than two dozen trolls come flying out, wide-eyed and with bloodstains on their clothes. Some of them have clearly been shot, and some of the other rebels have to stop what they’re doing to help them up. You hear Xefros yelling for help. 

“I’m gonna get them back to base!” you yell to Polypa over the chaos. She nods, looking a little relieved that you’re not about to throw yourself into a literal deathtrap. You zap over to where you heard Xefros and help him pull the injured trolls back towards the gate. As soon as you two get a sizable group, you zap them back to the cavern, scaring the shit out of a group of preteens who haven’t seen you teleport before. 

“I’m going to be bringing back those who need help, go get supplies!” you order. They stumble back and run off to get medical stuff and possibly to get a few older teenagers who actually know what they’re doing. 

Jumping back to the prison, you rush forward just in time to catch a half-conscious goldblood with a broken nose and several bullet holes in her abdomen. You grab the guy Xefros basically throws at you and bring them back as well. You don’t let yourself think that they might not make it until morning. 

At the cavern, everybody who didn’t go with the attack squad is either helping the injured prisoners or filing into the different tunnels to guard the main camp should it get attacked. A few little kids you see just kind of… watch everything that’s going on, and the majority of them don’t have a lusus nearby. You’re becoming way too familiar with that vacant stare of eyes that are way too old for such young faces. 

After you help the severely injured trolls lay down, you zap back and repeat the process a few more times, each time getting prisoners with even more severe wounds than before. 

When you end up back at the prison after your ninth round of transporting injured people around, unfamiliar-sounding snarls are piercing the air with a volume that makes you just about pee yourself. A girl screams. 

You turn around, and your jaw drops when some poor rebel chick comes flying around the corner of the building with not one but  _ two _ grown-ass ceruleans in tow. Even from this distance, in the dark, you can tell they’re definitely adults; no adolescent troll you’ve ever seen has skin so dark it looks almost black. 

You don’t think, you just act. Teleporting over, you grab the girl and yank her out of there faster than you can say  _ fuck this _ and drop her off by the tunnel entrance. 

“What’s going on inside?” you demand. 

She’s gasping for breath, but she manages to pull herself together in time to explain. “There weren’t just drones keeping us in line, there’s some adults who came because they know about the rebellion. I think I saw five? They’ve killed a bunch of us already!”

Hot rage burns through you. “Are you hurt?”

She holds up her arm, which is bent at a weird angle, but she just grimaces, grabs her bicep, and snaps it back into place. _ “Fuck. _ I don’t wanna go back in there.”

“Stay here and help those who need to get back to base, okay?” you encourage. 

She nods nervously. 

You pat her good arm and zap back, fully intent on tracking down the cerulean adults and teleporting them out to the middle of the sea. 

What you find upon reappearing inside the facility, quite by accident, is so much worse than what you could have ever expected. 

Three more armed adult trolls, two indigos and one cerulean, are herding the rebels back against the wall of what you think is a cafeteria. Never have you seen so many looks of pure, unfiltered  _ terror _ on the faces of teenagers you’ve seen throw bricks at drones. The adults are outnumbered fifteen to one, and yet none of the rebels seem to have the courage to so much as try and escape. You see Konyyl and Azdaja clinging to each other tightly, Tagora, Stelsa and Tyzias spitting and shrieking like alley cats being beaten, a sobbing Daraya clinging to Lanque, who’s shaking like a maraca and hissing at a pitch that makes your blood curdle. 

Polypa, clutching a knife in front of her like she’s ready to make her final stand. 

A green haze falls over your vision. Your ears ring. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a force as old as time itself rears its head in delight. 

Electricity turns the air hot as you leap in front of your friends with a speed no regular human should have been able to do. The adults rear back in surprise. The indigo guy’s mouth moves, but you don’t hear anything. 

You do, in fact,  _ feel _ something when your fist connects with his jaw and he drops like a dead man, which you think he might be when he doesn’t get back up after you land on your feet. It’s weird, feeling the bones in your hand shatter and then instantly knit themselves back together. Why do your bones heal but not cuts? Is it just for seriously debilitating injuries? 

Well, either way you can work with it. 

The other indigo doesn’t get the chance to try and fight back before some kind of shockwave blasts him and the cerulean into the wall hard enough for them to go right through. 

You turn back to the rebels, and normally you would have laughed at seeing every single one of their jaws nearly hit the floor, but for now it’s ass-beating time. 

The metallic roar of drone engines is the only warning you get before even more prisoners run past you, with drones hot on their heels. You don’t have to think about it, you just politely ask the atoms in the air to take care of it and they do. All four drones crash into an invisible barrier and fall back on their weak mechanical heinies. 

“Awesome,” you tell the atoms. The atoms vibrate a little harder, proud of themselves for a job well done. 

“Micah? Micah!  _ Micah!” _   
  


_ Polypa?  _ You turn to see her pointing at the other door to the cafeteria. You see hands frantically pounding at the bulletproof glass at the window near the top. 

You reach out and yank the door off its hinges without touching them. The prisoners don’t hesitate to sprint past on their way for the exit, leaping over the fallen drones like it’s nothing. 

“Chixie!” 

“Wha-!  _ Remele!” _

The connection to… whatever that was severs as Chixie brushes by you and throws herself, crying hysterically, into her matesprit’s arms. You come back to the real world as some of the rebels take off in every direction, blindly following the basic survival instinct of  _ I’m getting the hell out of here. _ You don’t blame them.

“The other way, guys!” you yell as a couple of the younger fighters run in the wrong direction. “The tunnel’s the other way!”

“Hey, darling, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Remele says shakily, holding on to Chixie like a lifeline. 

Somebody yells. “What the fuck did the alien just do?”

“I dunno, but it was badass! Micah, you gotta show us how you did that sometime!”

“I have  _ no _ idea how--” you begin, laughing because you have no idea what’s going on anymore, and for a second you think that everything’s gonna be okay. 

Chixie stumbles over to you and grabs your sleeve, desperate. “Micah, you g-gotta help him, please, he trapped himself in the cells with the drones and adults so everybody else could escape-!”

“What? Who?!” you yelp. 

_ “Zebruh!” _

<>

It all happened in the span of ten minutes. 

The psionics held off the drones by producing some kind of magnetic field so intense it fucked up the drones’ sensors and made them pretty much blind. The adults were not too far behind, and they killed a few of the others before you and the other highbloods who sided with the rebellion overpowered them. Your arm’s broken, but the cerulean bitch you helped the others kill has a blaster on her, and maybe you’re a horrible martial artist but you always were a great shot. 

“GET EVERYBODY OUT!” you howl to nobody in particular, because you have no else what to do as a couple more adults start trying to force their way through the door at the other end of the corridor. 

The other rebels don’t hesitate. There’s only three drones but a lot of lowbloods with powers, and slowly but surely they force the drones back from the entrance and out into the hallway. You spot them while the first adult makes his way inside, an indigo dude like yourself. He’s three times your size, though, and the first couple lasers you put in him don’t do a whole lot. You have to shoot three times before his skull shatters and he drops dead. 

Keeping the other two adults back is a lot harder. Chixie’s at your side, throwing shit at them and screaming herself hoarse. 

_ Oh, fuck, I don’t wanna die!  _

“Go, go, go!” you tell her, because you’re the one with a blaster and the rebellion’s going to need her bravery. 

“What? Zebruh, no-!”

“Here’s what’s going to happen, okay? We’re going to fall back, and you’re gonna get everybody out of the hallway and shut the door behind you and lock it. I’m going to seal myself inside the hallway and keep the adults in the cells as long as I can. Got it?”

“No! They’re going to _ kill _ you, you know that, right? Just start running!”

She pulls on you, but you yank your arm away and shove her towards the door. “Go!”

Chixie’s shaking your head, and you hiss furiously, not meeting her grief-filled eyes. “Chixie, listen! I’ve wasted my  _ whole fucking life _ being a complete _ idiot!  _ I haven’t done anything right,  _ ever! _ I see that now, and don’t you dare take away what might be my only chance to finally do something right. Get  _ out! _ I’ll meet you outside, okay?”

Her face crumples, but she listens, thank Gog, and takes off in a dead sprint as the last of the living rebels get out of the cells. 

You turn in time to shoot another indigo down, firing at anything that comes through that door. She gets back up no matter how many times you aim for her head, because she’s wearing a fucking  _ helmet, _ fuck, fuck _ fuck!  _

There’s only one more after her, and he’s not wearing a helmet, so you put a few lasers in his skull. He collapses just as the first indigo reaches you, picks you up by the collar, and hurls you into the wall. 

The concrete cracks underneath you. Your vision goes white and spotty. Somehow, you get back up and stumble out the door, locking it behind you and putting your back against it as you suck in oxygen. 

BLAM! BLAM! Two dents appear in the metal on your right. Thinking fast, you whip off your belt and use it to tie the handle so it can’t move. 

In the end, it doesn’t do much to stop her, though. You try and shoot her, but all she has to do is slap the blaster out of your hand, breaking your wrist in the process. 

She grabs you again, this time around your throat. You claw at her frantically, and for the first time as far as you can remember you’re crying. You want Zebradad, you want to go home, but everything is starting to go dark now and your whole body hurts so bad. 

You kick her once, twice, and then somehow slash her face under her visor. Blue blood drips from your claws. 

“Worth… it, you…  _ fucking…”  _

The giant blade that suddenly appears in her other hand is rammed through your chest. 

She drops you. It doesn’t hurt, really, so why can’t you move?

Why is it so

  
  


please i’m scared 

Did I do it right? Did I win? Is everything 

Going to 

  
  
  
  


gonna miss them 

  
  


oh

  
  
  
  
  


_ I’m sorry. _

<>

You’re running through the hallways, trying to teleport to him, but you keep ending up where he isn’t and you can’t breathe and  _ no no no this can’t be happening-- _

_ “Zebruh!”  _ you scream, rounding another corner and almost tripping over a trash can. “ZEBRUH WHERE ARE YOU YOU FUCKING DUMBASS?!”

You teleport again, and this time you see a trail of dark blue blood leading out of a metal door that’s been busted wide open when you look around for any clues. 

Something in both of your legs give, but you force yourself to keep going, not stopping when you leap through the hole and run to the broken form lying on the floor. There’s so much blood. Oh, God, there’s way too much, and no, no, that is not a whole BLADE THROUGH--

You fall down next to him, turning him over while your hand flutters helplessly over the blade that’s been put through his sternum, where a troll’s heart is. No magical part of you knows what to do about this. There’s nothing you can do, but you have to try. 

“Zebruh,” you call again. Your voice is a hoarse, whispery yell. “Hey. Hey, asshole. C’mon, open your eyes. I’m here. I-It’s me, Micah.”

They open, and you grin in agony as he reaches up to feebly grasp your arm. He mumbles something incoherent. You ask him if he can repeat himself, and he just slurs something out again. The liquid running down your face is so hot it burns. 

“I’m here,” you choke out, coughing weakly into his shoulder as you hold on tight. 

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and it’s quiet for a long moment before he manages to look up at you through eyes that have only just begun to turn dark blue. 

“Sor-ry,” he wheezes. 

“For what? You-you saved everybody, dude,” you tell him. 

He nods, and you think he smiles a little before the light in him goes out forever. 

“Miss you.”

And then he’s gone. 

  
  


He’s gone. 

  
  


You sit there for a while, staring at the wall while you just scream, and scream, until you can’t any longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not me literally crying as I wrote out the end of the chapter


	37. Of Loss, Through Death and Otherwise

Telling Chixie is the first thing you do. You remember seeing her shake her head and wipe the tears from her eyes, calling him a stupid bastard who just  _ had _ to play the hero. The two of you bring his body out into the desert and bury him in the sand. 

Trolls don’t have funerals, and you need to get back to the prison so you can start teleporting people back to base, so all you get to do is cry a little more before you have to teleport yourself and Chixie to where the others are waiting. All the others that died are stripped of anything that the rebellion can recycle and left in the compound as one last big  _ fuck you _ to the next people who want to use it. 

The next few hours pass by in a blur. You don’t remember a whole lot. At one point you stop crying and feeling sad, which you think is good until you realize you can’t feel much of anything at all. Somebody gives you a band-aid for a cut on your arm that you don’t recall getting. 

You’re such a piece of shit. You should have never turned your back on Zebruh. He should be alive right now, running some dumbass commentary while you show him around the rebels’ base, or back home safe with his lusus. But he’s not. You weren’t there to help him, because you pushed him away, and it’s all your fault that he’s dead. 

He’s dead. 

They killed him. 

At one point when you ambling around the base in a daze you see Elwurd and Ardata escorting Tegiri towards Dammek and Xefros’s tent. You lock eyes with him. He glares at you and slices a finger across his throat. 

No words were said, but the message is very clear. 

Just how many more people you care about are you going to lose? It’s too much. You want to scream, you want to start a fight, you want to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and never return. Going into this rebellion had been the easiest choice in the world, but now all you can do is just stand there while everything around you shatters like glass. 

“Hey.”

Her hand grasps your shoulder and turns you to face her. Olive-speckled eyes roam all over your face, searching for something you don’t understand, before the sad smile she’s wearing fades away. “I’m sorry, Micah. He shouldn’t have had to die tonight.  _ Nobody _ should have died.”

“The last thing… the last thing I ever told him before all of this happened was that he wasn’t my friend and never was,” you tell her, your words sounding like they’re coming in from a million miles away. “The last thing I did was hurt him. And now I can’t tell him I didn’t mean it.”

“None of this is your fault. You know that, right?”

“If I was there I could have saved him.”

“Look at me,” she orders. 

You look up at her. 

Polypa sighs, cupping your face in her hands. “You  _ change _ people, Micah. You changed Codakk when you walked away from him that night, and you made him see that the way he was acting isn’t okay. That it has consequences. But  _ he _ was the one to choose to fight for what’s right, not you. That takes a lot of courage, more than what a lot of people have.”

“I just… what’s the point of having powers like I do if I can’t save my friends?” you croak. 

“To make things better for everybody else. You already do.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“You’ll see.”

“Okay,” you say, even though you can’t bring yourself to believe her. “Sorry I’m a fucking wreck. Humans aren’t made to handle death, Polypa. We’re selfish like that.”

“No apologizing.” She flicks your nose, making you scrunch up your face. “I’m your moirail because of all the weird parts of you, not in spite of them.”

“You really are a different breed when it comes to romance,” you manage to joke. 

She grins. “Running an advice blog for quadrantmates for several sweeps will do that. Are you going to be okay?” 

“Um, I think so. In a while.”

You still feel numb inside, but at least the edge has been taken off. Thank God for Polypa. You’re about to ask her if she wants to go for a walk through the tunnels to talk more about Feelings, because you also want to make sure she’s okay, too, but that’s when a resounding snarl reaches your ears. Turning around, you see Tegiri storming back the way he came. 

_ Uh oh.  _

“If you think you can get anything out of me then you’re just as stupid as you look! I’ll die before I betray the Empire!” he shouts over his shoulder. 

“Get back here, teal scum!” A dark blur overtakes him in a heartbeat and tackles him to the ground. He tries to buck off a spitting Ardata, who shoves his face into the ground and whips out a rope to tie him up with. Trying to get away proves to be useless, as Ardata is way stronger than him and ten times as violent. 

“Maybe you should--” you mumble just as Polypa says something like, “I’m just gonna go and make sure nobody…”   
  


You look at each other, and then you both take off in opposite directions, Polypa bounding over to hopefully minimize the damage and you needing to get away before he sees you and loses his pan even more than he already has. 

Maybe when he cools down you’ll go and talk to him. See what you can do to change his mind about living under the Empire’s thumb. 

… 

Holy crap, you’re so tired. 

On second thought, you’re going to go to sleep and not wake up until tomorrow. Yeah, everything’s gonna be better tomorrow. It has to be. There’s no reason why anything more shitty than what you’ve already been through should occur. 

With that thought keeping the last threads of your sanity from floating away, you head back to where you slept the previous day, flop down on the blanket, and pass out. 

:::

Your dreams are hazy and don’t make a whole lot of sense, but you’re able to cling to a few things here and there to cement them into your memory. A beach. Looking out a window at a raging storm outside before a pair of strong arms scoop you up and carry you away. A school hallway with the smell of markers in your nose. 

_ Remember. Come on, give me more to work with. Show me my mom. Let me hear her voice.  _

The dreamscape changes, dropping you down on the top landing of a flight of stairs. You’re much smaller now, with long blonde hair that falls past your shoulders. Crouching down behind the shelter of the railing, you watch three shadowy figures below, all adults. They’re arguing with each other. 

One of them, a woman in a business suit, is shouting something you can’t make heads or tails of at the two other shadows. Her face is an oval of pure black, with no features to be seen whatsoever. Even so, she radiates authority and righteous anger. 

Is she your mom? Her hair is the same color as yours. She’s short like you, too. 

“Momma?” you ask, but no matter how hard you try no sound leaves your mouth. 

The figures vanish and you go tumbling through the void. 

The tumbling turns into somebody shaking your shoulder, the movement jostling you from your sleep. You whimper and slap at whoever’s touching you. No, no, you need to get back to your mom. You need to see more memories. 

“Micah. Micah, come on, darling. Wake up.”

“Mmph- _ mng?” _ Your eyes fly open as a cool hand lightly pats your forehead. With a snort, you jolt upright, startled. 

Lanque and Daraya stare down at you with matching expressions of  _ I’m concerned but trying not to show it.  _

“... Sorry. You were having a daymare,” Lanque tells you. 

You scowl at him. “No, I was having a dream about my mom. You ruined it.”

He grimaces. 

“What do you want?” you demand, anger heating up your gut. The sooner you get back to sleep, the sooner you can escape the hell that is being alive and get back to remembering the person you used to be. 

Daraya scoots back, not used to you being a total bitch. “Um, well, Wanshi texted me earlier and said that there’s something we need to come see…”

“And?”

“... Bronya and Lynera might not try to kill us if you’re there.”

“Is it important?”

“Wanshi said it is.”

You restrain yourself from bashing your skull in against the ground and clench your jaw. The ugly thing inside of you rears its head, screaming at you to protect yourself and start swinging. Keeping it under control takes everything in you. “Fine.”

“When you’re there you can brush your teeth,” Lanque assures you, leaning away from you and making a face. 

You resist the urge to sucker punch him and settle for zapping the three of you into Daraya’s room in the jades’ caverns, except you have the fabric of reality spit Lanque out in a way that makes him bang his horns on the ceiling and fall twelve feet to the floor. 

Ignoring him as he stumbles to his feet, you turn to Daraya. “What’s the game plan? Are we just saying ‘fuck it’ and walk around like we own the place?”

“I guess? Wanshi said that everybody else is busy at the front of the cave because they’re helping refugees, so it’s whatever,” Daraya mutters. She doesn’t look happy to be back home, if she still considers the caverns to be anything of the sort. 

You don’t want to do anymore teleporting; Dammek had told you that the drones shouldn’t be able to detect the radiation you give off so far underground but you’d rather be safe than sorry. Therefore, you, Daraya, and Lanque sneak off to Wanshi’s room on foot, avoiding the main passageways at all costs and not saying a word to each other. 

Somehow, the three of you don’t run into anybody all the way to the youngest jade’s block. You knock softly on her door, barely making any noise that’s audible to your crappy human ears, and wait. Daraya checks her phone before shoving it back into her pants, visibly nervous. 

The door cracks open, and a small gray hand grabs you by the forearm and pulls you inside. Daraya and Lanque slip in after you, but before you can so much as say hi Wanshi locks the door behind them with startling precision. It’s only then she turns to you. Her eyes are wide and panicky, and her ears are flat against the sides of her head. 

“I found something I probably shouldn’t have,” she whispers. 

“What?” you ask, matching her tone. Your anger is quickly draining away, replaced by pure apprehension. Is Wanshi in danger? 

Instead of answering, she dashes past you and into the walled-off section of her room. When she returns after shuffling some stuff around she’s carrying a large bundle in her arms that’s almost as big as her whole torso. 

It’s a red blanket, faded and eaten away by whatever likes to chew on fabric underground. Still, Wanshi carries it over to her desk with the same reverence as you’ve seen her hold grubs, and sets it down gently. 

The three of you crowd around her as she delicately unwraps the blanket. It smells like it’s been… well, in a dark cave underground for a long,  _ long _ time. The must is  _ intense. _ Beside you, Lanque muffles a sneeze into the crook of his arm, eyes watering. 

You almost make a smart comment, only for Wanshi to finally reveal what was hidden inside the blanket while she dusts it off. 

Lanque goes perfectly still, and Daraya sucks in a sharp breath. 

“Holy fuckin’ moly,” is all you can say. 

It’s a book, bound with black leather and dirty as all hell, but on the front is a familiar symbol etched in the brightest red you’ve ever seen, somehow untouched by time. The design is the exact same as the one Karkat wears on his shirts. This book doesn’t belong to him, though. He won’t be born until much later. No, this ancient tome was written long before any of your friends were a twinkle in the Mother Grub’s eye. 

“It’s  _ his,”  _ Daraya rasps. 

“Wanshi, where did you  _ find _ this?” Lanque demands in shock. “This… this isn’t just some regular illegal material. If a drone saw this the entirety of the cloister would be culled on the spot, no questions asked.”

Wanshi’s face turns from dark slate to ivory, but she keeps her composure. “I-I was messing around in one of the really old storage units and I found this room that was hidden behind a bunch of stuff, and-and I got the door open and looked inside. Most of it looked like junk, but this book was wrapped up in a bunch of blankets inside a chest. I thought you g-guys might want it ‘cause of the sign.”

“Jegus on a flaming-- Wanshi, this book might  _ help us win,” _ Daraya breaths, shaking with a giddiness you’ve never seen before. She turns to grab Wanshi’s shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. “Have you already read some of it?”

“Uh-um, yeah? This girl named Meulin and her friends go on this adventure with Kankri, except Kankri’s a mutant and he wants everything to be better for everyone. I haven’t gotten that far, though. Meulin seems really nice.”

Daraya looks like she’s about to pass out. “Tyzias is going to  _ shit.” _

“... Am I in trouble?” Wanshi squeaks. 

“No. No, definitely not,” Lanque says calmly, even though his eyes are blazing with fear and excitement. He crouches down to her level and meets her eyes. “But I need you to promise me something. I don’t care if you break all of the other promises you’ve ever made in your life, but you cannot, under any circumstances, tell  _ anybody _ about what you found. Not Bronya, not Lynera, not Karako, not the damn Mother Grub herself. Because if the government finds out we had something of the Sufferer’s in our possession for who knows how long, we’re all going to die. And then once we’re all dead, I’m going to hunt you down as a ghost and box your ears.”

“And I’ll be ghost-grounded until the end of the universe,” Wanshi agrees. 

“Yes, you most certainly will. So what can’t you do?”

“Tell anybody about the book,  _ ever,  _ no matter what.”

“That’s my girl.” He picks her up and rests his chin on the top of her head, between her horns. You forget that you’re mad at him and press your face against his upper arm. Daraya comes around and sort of shoves herself against your back, which you assume is angsty teenager for  _ I think you guys are tolerable sometimes.  _

For just a few seconds, you can pretend that everything is going to be okay. 

That’s when, of course, there’s a pounding at the door like somebody’s trying to break it down with their fists. 

BANG! BANG!

“Oh, shi--”

The four of you jump back just in time for none other than Bronya Ursama to come storming in. Wanshi’s door just about falls off its hinges from the force of being bashed in. A fearsome growl is building up from somewhere deep in her chest, and her eyes are flashing with an uncharacteristic fury. She’s got dark bags under each socket; she hasn’t been sleeping well and you’re pretty sure she’s about to let everybody know why. 

Behind her is Lynera. Her gaze flickers back and forth between Bronya, you, Lanque, Wanshi, and Daraya. She doesn’t look nearly as angry as Bronya, but boy howdy does she look scared. 

Quick as lightning, Daraya flips the blanket over so it’s covering the Sufferer’s book. Your body blocks the motion from Bronya’s line of sight, but fortunately (or, rather, unfortunately) it’s Lanque she’s glaring daggers at. 

“Two nights and a day,” she hisses. The sound sends ice water up your spine. “That’s how long you and Daraya have been gone. And Micah! Where the hell  _ were _ you? You know it’s dangerous out there for you, so why on  _ Alternia _ didn’t you come back to the caverns when the riots started?! You could have been killed,  _ all three of you could have been killed!” _

_ Oh, we’re so fucked.  _

“We’re just here to get some things and see Wanshi,” Lanque tells her coldly. 

“Just here to… oh, I think  _ not.  _ None of you are leaving here until it is safe! You have  _ no _ idea what you have put me through these past couple of nights! ” Bronya draws herself up to her full height, and she’s not that tall for a troll but she’s still muscular as fuck from working in the caverns all her life. She could pop your head off like a dandelion. The majority of her anger is far from being focused on you, but it still takes a lot of courage to not zap out of there like the coward you are. 

Daraya steps forward to stand beside Lanque, fangs bared. “We don’t have to listen to you anymore. We’re part of the rebellion, and by part I mean that I’m one of its literal fucking leaders! I helped create it! So, technically, I outrank  _ you!” _

She points an accusing claw at Bronya, who’s eyes widen even further. 

Okay, now’s the time for you to step in. You put yourself in between her and the others, hoping that what you’re going to say is the right thing. “Bronya, listen. I know that what we’ve done upset you, and I’m so sorry you were worried while you have so many important things going on right now. I should have done more to keep in contact with you while everything went to shit. But the fact is that the world is changing. Yeah, it looks awful, and it  _ is _ awful, because a lot of good people are dead and some of my friends are dead--” You think of Zebruh, and your heart breaks even more. “--and I’m about three seconds away from a mental breakdown at any given time. The rebellion has a good cause, one that I know that you want to fight for even though you can’t, because of your duties.”

“Is it worth it?” she snaps. “All that death and destruction? Is that going to make the world a better place, somehow?”

“I don’t know. All we can do is keep fighting against what’s hurting people, what’s been hurting people for thousands and thousands of sweeps,” you say honestly. 

“We’re never going to give up!” Daraya shouts. “B-Because even if we do die, it’s better than having done nothing! I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this!”

“You don’t have a choice! None of us do!”

“Yes, we do! That’s why we’re fighting.”

You try again. “Bronya, one of the best things about you is that you want to keep people safe. But you just can’t. Everybody needs to be free to make their own choices in life, and what they choose to do or be shouldn’t be set by a system that’s done far more harm than good.”

“I know I can’t keep everybody safe! That’s why I just need to keep my jades safe,” Bronya insists, gesturing to Daraya and Lanque. 

“What if there was a world out there where you don’t have to worry about protecting them? Or protecting grubs who don’t meet the government-set criteria for life? That’s what we’re fighting for!” you explain desperately. 

She hesitates, and you continue. “You raised Karako since he was a baby because he would have been culled otherwise. What’s going to happen at his adult trials once he comes of age? I know you’ve lost sleep over that, I can see it in your eyes.”

“No.”

“He’s going to die. Pretending like it’s not going to happen won’t change anything.”

“Have you had that  _ talk  _ with him yet? I don’t think you have. How about I do it instead?” Lanque sneers. 

Bronya lunges at him, and you jump out in front of him to stop her. Wanshi shrieks in terror. “Don’t! Lanque, stop making everything worse! Bronya, put your fists down or I’m zapping the both of us out of here.”

She’s breathing heavily, pupils blown out in rage. Lanque hisses and shields Wanshi from her. Daraya looks ready for a brawl. Behind Bronya, Lynera palms the handle of a blade that’s definitely been strapped to her thigh, underneath her skirt. 

_ Come on, Micah. Diffuse the situation.  _ “I know that there’s a lot of history in this room between everybody here--”

Lanque snorts. “You have no idea, sweetheart.”

“-- And quite frankly, that’s none of my business right now. What is my business is that Lanque and Daraya are rebel fighters, as am I. We’re going to change the world. Those are the simple facts. What’s up for you to choose, Bronya, is if you want to support them or not. You’ve looked after everybody in these caverns for sweeps. I don’t see why you should have to stop now.”

She stares at you in disbelief. “You’re a-- you’re on their side?”

“I’m not on anybody’s side! You’re all important to me. I just need you to understand that Lanque and Daraya have chosen their paths. I’m supporting them, just as I’ve supported you by helping in your nursery to care for the disabled grubs.”

“You’re on their side.”

“I--”

“What about our agreement?” she explodes. “You were supposed to keep an eye on these two for me and keep them out of trouble! You, out of  _ everybody, _ Micah! I turned a blind eye to you helping Daraya sneak out and going to parties with Lanque in the past, but this? Why didn’t you come to me sooner about all of this rebellion business?”

_ “Because I’ve been covering for them the whole time!” _

Dead silence crashes down on the room, deafening in its weight. Nobody says anything. Nobody moves a muscle. 

Lynera stares at you, and you wish she’d say something already, but it’s Bronya who goes perfectly still for a moment, before her eyes narrow to fiery slits in the darkness. She takes one step, two steps toward you. 

After all is said and done, you know your brain registered Bronya raise a hand and bring it back down. You know you felt a strange tugging sensation across your forehead, ending on your left eyebrow like somebody ran a finger down it. 

You definitely felt the force of the blow when your head snaps back hard enough for something in your neck to pull. You stumble back into the desk chair, almost falling over before reaching up to touch your forehead. Something hot runs down your face and fingers. 

And then it’s in your eye, and you think you cry out in pain but you’re not certain. Your entire eye socket stings, your forehead stings. 

Somebody’s howling in rage, and from your good eye you see Lynera, shaking and covering her mouth with her hands. Bronya’s staring at you in horror with red blood on her claws. Your sight is then blocked by somebody much taller than you-- Lanque, snarling so dang loudly you feel it through the floor. 

Silently, you stand upright, and when you don’t pass out you just… walk over to the bathroom and shut the door behind you. 

The person you see in the mirror has two long slices running from the top left of their forehead, one longer than the other and bleeding profusely. They go down through the eyebrow. Your left eye is red with blood. 

_ Damn, she really does hit good,  _ you think, and then you break down completely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Hiveswap 2, anybody?


	38. Of Doubts and Danger, the Life-Threatening Sort

Your name is KUPRUM MAXLOL and you’re surrounded by a bunch of fuckin’ traitors. 

Even the big indigo guy-- what was his name, Galekh? Yeah, _Galekh_ seemed thrilled to talk with the rebels about why they support overthrowing the Alternian Empire. It blows your mind that the dude who’s supposed to be whipping everybody’s shit back into shape is letting a whole hive full of trolls talk treason. 

And Folkyl is among them, leaning comfortably against Marsti as they make fun of the Heiress together. Trizza Tethis. The _leader_ of Alternia. Your idol and hero, the strongest Heiress to have ever lived.

You have limits, like any other troll with more than a few cells rattling around in their pan. Pranking highbloods? Hell yeah. Hacking drones to make them do the cluckbeast shuffle in the middle of a busy street? Priceless. But all of this, this is way too much. 

When nobody’s looking, you make sure your battery backpack is fully charged for Folkyl and slip out the back door. 

It’s unusually cold for an early summer night. You shiver a little, ignoring the curious humming that comes from the beehive out in the yard, and turn to blast your way up to the roof. Finding somewhere to sit that doesn’t completely freeze your asscheeks to the sunproof tile is a little tricky, but eventually you find a spot that isn’t as miserably cold as all the others and plop right down. Any hive worth living in is made of material that’s made to dispel heat, and this piece of crap shack is no different. 

What the fuck are you going to do? You can’t just… report them. They’d kill Folkyl and Marsti, or maybe just Marsti, and then Folkyl would leave you even though it would kill her. She’s stubborn like that. 

A kind, happy face pops into your mind’s ganderbulb. Micah. 

The government’s after them, too, but that’s obviously gotta be a mistake. Some noob who ended up way too high in the chain of command must have done a line or twenty and decided on a whim to get rid of the tiny, harmless alien who’s done nothing wrong. 

You’ll have a talk with the alien about all of this shit, and then you’ll know what to do. Micah doesn’t have a bad bone in their body; you know they’ll be able to make a fair call. You just hope they don’t get mixed up with the wrong kind of people. 

“Aw, man… somebody took my hiding spot.”

_The shit?_ You turn to see that one oliveblood who had led everybody to the goldblood kid’s house. They’re standing on your left without a care in the world, staring out at the desert with an expression that’s both distant and peaceful. 

“Don’t worry, you can keep it. People are overwhelming to deal with,” they tell you. 

“... Yeah. Uh, thanks for bringing us here. You’re a real one,” you offer. 

“Ha. Well, I wasn’t about to stay and get culled.” They kick a pebble off the roof. It clatters to the ground without fanfare. “Still have shit to live for, believe it or not.”

The smoke rising into the sky far behind you is a harsh contrast to that statement, but you don’t say anything more as you watch the moons change position in the sky. 

A voice calling your name jolts you out of the daze you fell into what feels like a few hours later. You peer over the gutter to see Marsti standing below, hands on her hips and a scowl fixed on to her face. She’s scary, which is why you like her, but why the hell did Folkyl have to go get a woman who can snap you in half like a twig? 

“Get your ass back inside. We’re holding a meeting,” she orders. 

You groan, but leap to the ground with your psionics and follow her inside. Something smells like it’s cooking, but you can’t bring yourself to feel hungry, like your acid tract knows that your life is about to change drastically and wants to fight back. You just don’t know if it'll be for better or for worse. 

_What the fuck is this world coming to?_

Out in the distance, you hear something rumble, but when you turn to look there’s nothing there. 

<>

Your name is KARAKO PIEROT, and you’re having a lot of fun with your new friends! Even though you guys had to go hide in a big cave underground, and it’s not as nice as Mama’s cave, there's lots of interesting new people. Some of the interesting new people are injured, though, so you do your best to give them a wide berth while they recover. A couple times, you see a starry-colored figure rise up from a body with too much blood on the outside and not enough on the inside. The figures always look just like the body. 

_Spirits,_ Baizli had told you. 

_Or ghosts!_ chimed Barzum. 

One of the ghosts is really nice and talks to you about all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to think about the dead bodies. He was an indigo, you think, even if he’s a little skinny for a highblood. He said that he was friends with Micah before he died, and that they were with him when he passed away. 

“You would think that’s there’s nothing to do when you’re dead, but no,” the ghost complains as he works on moving material objects with his non-corporeal form. He manages to shift a pebble a bit with his shoe. “I die, and then I’m in this giant field with all these stars in the sky above me, and then this olive girl runs up to greet me. She’s cute, right? I mean, all olivebloods are good-looking, but whatever. She says hey and that I did a really good job saving the other rebels back there and if I want to do insane spirit-y shenanigans with her to help the timeline or whatever. I say yes, because again, she’s cute. Not as cute as Chixie, though. I would have built a pile with her any day of the wipe.”

“Honk?”

“Oh, uh… you’ll learn when you get older. My bad. Anyways, now I’m supposed to hang out in the living world and help the dead over to the afterlife, which is stupid because they end up there anyways. But it turns out there’s _still_ shit to take care of, because this rustblood girl called Aradia is chasing this alien god dude around trying to stop him from ruining the universe. I can’t interact with stuff on this level of existence anymore, but hey, I can sort of seal holes in the fabric of reality! It’s wack,” he explains. 

“Honk!”

“I know, right? Crazy how that sort of thing works. I’m just glad that purplebloods can apparently see dead people, otherwise I would just have to talk to other dead people and more often than not they’re depressed as shit from the trauma of dying. I think I have trauma, too, but… I dunno, I’m built different. Or maybe it’ll catch up to me later and I’ll be a mess. I can’t do anything right, can I?”

_“Honk.”_

“Crap, you’re right. Bad self-talk is bad for mental health. Good catch, kid.”

“Honk!”

“You’re right. Being kind to myself is what they would have wanted me to do.”

“Honk…?”

“Yeah, I’d love to hear a story! Purpleblood lore has always been so _fascinating,_ you know? It’s always been one of my favorite areas of study…”

<>

Your name is TIRONA KASUND and you have been abandoned. Forsaken. Cast aside. Shunned. Dismissed. 

Sure, the grown-ups all get to go to war, but what do you get? A half-charged tablet and a challenge to make memes for the _rebellion,_ not the Heiress!

Not that you want to go to war. No, you don’t need glory, and you definitely don’t want anything to do with those stinking, rotten traitors. They’re all dead to you, even Tyzias. Even Tagora. 

It’s outrageous. It’s disgusting. 

You should call the drones. That would be the correct thing to do. The emergency alert said that any citizen who could provide accurate information about the rebellion would be rewarded, and what better information about the rebellion than where they Mcfrickin’ set up camp? 

You’d be a hero. Trizza herself might come down to personally thank you for being an honorable troll and offer you a position most legislators only _dream_ of. His Honorable Tyranny would know your name!

So why, in the name of all that’s holy, can’t you _do it?_

You’ve got one claw hovering over the call button that would summon the drones. There’s still enough signal for them to track your location down. 

Just one button. Just one call. 

_C’mon, Kasund, just rat them out already!_

With a sob of shame, you throw the tablet across the tent and burrow into your sleeping bag. 

_Pathetic._

The faces of your colleagues flash through your pan rapid-fire. They’ve all pissed you off in one way or the other. But those suckers practically raised you, too. Your lusus was a piece of poop caretaker who should have gotten stepped on the day she was hatched. She didn’t care much about you, but they did. It was Tyzias who taught you how to do a spreadsheet, Stelsa who showed you how to dress to impress, Tagora who made you practice how to be quick and clever and deadly, and Tegiri who taught you all about memes and how society works. 

He’s being held prisoner somewhere. You haven’t asked to see him yet. You’re not sure if you’re brave enough. 

What would you even say? _Yes, they’re all spitting in the face of the Empire, but please, Teggy, don’t be mad at them! We’re family, remember?_

Family is all you have in the end. 

… What _is_ a family, anyways? 

You sit up and rub your eyes. The thing is, you conclude after a while, you don’t really know. It’s the people who you care about and who cares about you, or something. The assholes who wouldn’t kill you if given the chance. 

Maybe there is no correct way to be a family. Fate just decides to throw a bunch of idiots together and call it a night every now and again, and the only thing one can do is just go along for the ride. 

You know then that you won’t be calling the drones. Not now, and not ever. 

“I’m a traitor, now,” you tell yourself. “Think traitorous thoughts.”

You don’t know how a traitor would think, though. _Ugh._

Something scratches against your leg. Reaching down, you pull out a half-smushed energy bar, and with a sigh you unwrap it and eat it while trying not to cry anymore. There will be no memes made tonight. Perhaps tomorrow would be more inspiring. 

It has to be. 

<>

In total, it takes five days for Roxy to stabilize. 

First, you had Lil Hal design a plan of attack, AKA coming up with a new kind of white blood cell made from a sample of your own blood, seeing as that Roxy’s natural defenses weren’t doing so hot. These new cells would have to be strong enough to take out any illness in its way, revitalize the liver, and destroy any remaining alcohol in her system. Then, you made an IV out of a tube and a needle you welded together and put a shit-ton of vitamins in it. After sticking it into her arm, you hook up Roxy’s new liver-slash-immune system to your laptop and fill a syringe with the new-and-improved white blood cells. The program you designed says that it’s a safe level for you to start with. 

You’re not a doctor. You don’t know jack shit about medicine. Therefore, you just send a prayer to whoever the fuck is stupid enough to take pity on you and plunge the needle into her arm. 

Science. Fuck yeah. 

The first day is the worst. Roxy’s pulse drops and she nearly flatlines no less than three times. Her fever soars as her body does its best to figure out what the fresh hell these new cells are. The only thing that keeps you from crying like a little weenie is that she keeps coming back to consciousness in short, but strong, bursts. She doesn’t seem to be hallucinating anymore, either. She does cuss you out a few times, making Jake laugh from where he’s curled up in the nearby beanbag with a book. 

“Jake, she is in a _lot_ of pain!” Jane scolds, giving him a good swat upside the head after Roxy dazedly tells you to shove your own dick up somewhere any man considers sacred territory. All you did was adjust her IV. Damn. 

Jake doesn’t stop smiling. “She’s gonna live, Crocker. She’s going to be okay. I just know it.”

You know that, too. Roxy Lalonde will not die today, or anytime soon, because the story demands it. She’s important. The universe will wait for her as long as it needs to. 

That doesn’t mean you like watching her suffer, though. The last time her heart almost gives out on her you have to step outside to have a serious pep talk with yourself. Bust out the old count-to-twenty forwards and backwards, meditate on every breath like it’s the last one you’ll ever take. Count in hexadecimal. Mentally calculate the square root of two-thousand, four-hundred and one (it’s forty-nine) and figure out if you could build a robot only using measurements of multiples of just forty-nine. You can’t, of course. 

The second day is a little better. She stops trying to die and actually manages to stay awake for a full hour in the afternoon. Jane makes cookies for everybody like the goddess she is, while Jake takes you outside to teach you how to fire a gun. His hands and arms are solid and warm on yours, the handsomest shade of brown next to your tan. 

Roxy still can’t keep any solids down, but she does drink a few sips of water before passing back out again. It’s something, right? 

The third day she sleeps, has Jane drag her to the bathroom to pee, and sleeps some more. Her face has returned to tawny from gray. One (1) slice of an apple is consumed and is not returned to sender. 

The fourth she stays awake all the way until dinnertime. You can see as plain as day that she’s still feeling like shit, but she’s conscious and makes morbid jokes until Jane cries and smacks her a few times. Hobbling around your crib takes a lot out of her, so you make sure there’s always somebody within grabbing distance in case she blacks out. Mutie is practically glued to her at all times, which makes you feel a lot better, because you just _know_ that cat is on a whole different level. He knows to just take his dumps right off the porch and everything. 

The fifth and final day, Roxy gets up out of bed, gets dressed, eats breakfast, brushes her teeth, and joins the rest of you out in the living room like all she had was the flu. 

“Dirk, why is my poop still lookin’ like mustard?” she yawns, flopping back on the couch next to a still half-asleep Jake. 

Jane makes a face like Roxy just did a striptease in front of somebody’s elderly grandmother. “Now that’s _gross,_ you sweaty goblin.”

“Oh, go poop yourself.”

“Well, considering you just spent the last week or so in an alcohol withdrawal-induced blackout, I’m not surprised that your digestive system refuses to play nice,” you explain politely. “Just keep sticking to yogurt and cereal for now. And don’t die.”

“When can we go back so I can get clean clothes?” Her brows furrow, and then she sits up like she’s been electrocuted. “Um, wait. How the-- Dirk? Are we at your frickin’ _house?”_

You grin. “Yes. Yes, we are at my house. I figured out time travel because a fishy-looking bastard with a cape gave me some machine-thingy in a dream.”

_“What?”_

“Yeah.”

She turns to Jane and Jake, who turn to you, and you heave a sigh. Mutie trots over to Roxy and starts chewing on her pant leg. Outside, a gull takes a crap on your porch. 

“Fishy guy is an alien from a planet called Alternia,” you begin. 

Roxy perks up a bit. “Oh, I met one of Micah’s friends who’s from Alternia! He was super cranky. And then I met my son from another dimension. He’s awesome.”

“... How in the thrice-forsaken scallops are you shocked over time travel but go ahead and mention that you got to meet an alien and your _son?”_ Jake demands. 

“I was kind of out of my mind with a fever at the time. Sorry, Dirk, go ahead.”

“I hate all of you. _Anyways._ We need to leave this universe and go find Micah because they’re gonna need us, and also because this place sucks and nothing happens here. The fishy guy said so, and therefore it will happen,” you proclaim, teepeeing your fingers and crossing one leg over the other for the full _James Bond_ villain effect. 

Silence. 

Jane clasps her hands after a long moment of nobody saying or doing anything. “Why did I agree to this.”

“Because all our lives are unfufilling as fuck and we’ve got literally nothing better to do because we’re not playing SBURB anymore?”

“Damn you.”

Jake raises a hand. “So are we not going to talk about how Roxy almost died several times because of her raging alcoholism?”

Roxy slowly pulls a pillow over her head and sinks down into the couch as far as she can go. 

“She didn’t almost die because of the alcoholism, she almost died because of the withdrawal,” you correct. 

  
  


“Goodness me, thanks for clearing that up, champ.”

_Well, this is awkward._ “I was going to get to that, I promise. I was just filling Roxy in on what she missed and why she’s here. Now. Roxy.”

Roxy looks like she’s actively trying to clip through the floor and fall into the ocean below. She mumbles something you can’t make out, but you think she might be pleading for death. 

“I am so fucking relieved that you are okay. However. _Why,”_ you demand. 

“Mmph!”

“Why would you do something like that? You were all alone back there and you decided to just quit cold turkey! That’s how people _die!”_ Jane shrieks. 

_Whump._ Roxy rips the pillow off her face and flings it away. “Well how was I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know! The internet? Where you can learn things?”

“I wanted to get better, so I tried to get better! Not my fault my stupid body went ahead and ruined everything!”

Jake beats a hasty retreat by scooting off the couch as Jane and Roxy face off. Jesus, you knew that girls are scary, but the energy in the room is now borderline nuclear. Too many years of pent-up frustration is all coming out in your living room, and the only thing you can do is make sure neither of them grab for a sword. 

“I bloody told you that those drinks were going to be the death of you, and I was almost right! How many times did she nearly flatline, Dirk?” Jane cries. Before you can answer, she continues. “I’ll tell you. Three times! We almost lost you _three times!”_

“So I didn’t do well with raising myself! Sue me. At least I didn’t end up a little judgemental brainwashed prat.”

Uh oh. 

“Brainwashed? At least I didn’t end up brain _dead_ with alcoholism!”

“Sometimes I wish I-- eugh--” 

Roxy sways, and you barely reach her in time before she collapses. Jane’s entire demeanor changes, going from enraged to panicky in less than a second. There’s a weird popping noise from behind you, but you've got bigger fish to fry right now. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be picking fights with the girl who’s just been through addiction and a near-death experience, Crocker,” you snap. You pull Roxy back up onto the couch and lay her out on her back. “Honestly, what would Micah think?”

“I’m thinking what the _fuck is going on here?!”_

Your hand flies to your waist for a sword that isn’t there as you whip around to face the owner of the new voice. 

Micah’s standing there, where the kitchen meets the living room, looking around in bewilderment at the medical stuff you’ve got strewn about everywhere, Roxy passed the fuck out on the couch, Mutie meowing pathetically because nobody’s giving him attention. 

_Way too much,_ you want to tell them, but what comes out of your mouth is, “Dude, what happened to your face?”

“My _face--_ Roxy!” they rush over to her and swipe the hair back from her sweaty forehead. “What-why does she look like that? She looks awful!”

You, Jake, and Jane all look at each other, and then back at Micah. 

“Um, hello again!” Jake offers. 

“Hi,” Jane whispers. 

“So, here’s the thing…” _Being by myself all the time was so much easier, holy shit, why does the storyline have to do all of this fuckery? This is more fuckery than a fifty-person orgy outside a strip club. This is the level of fuckery most mortals only aspire to--_

And then Lil Hal decides it’s time to boot up so he can join in on the festivities. **“What’s good, Nick Fury? Not this good Christian household, I’ll tell you that.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy FUCK y'all?!?! Over ten-thousand views and a thousand comments? And 420 kudos??? WHAT?!?! I have no words. You guys have been beyond amazing. Every single one of you have helped so much in writing this story. Unfortunately, updates might be a little slow for a bit while I get through finals, but I'll be off school for two whole months after that. 
> 
> I've also started receiving fan art??? Me, a simple, humble bitch who is a filthy Homestuck? I'm speechless. I know I've already thanked all of you artists, but again, you'll never know how grateful I am to have folks drawing for Riverbound. I never thought that something like this would ever happen. 
> 
> I love you guys. And for my fellow Americans, WE FUCKING DID IT WE GOT RID OF THE ORANGE MAN YEEHAWWWWW


	39. Of Comfort and Capture

It’s strange, you think, how you’ve never really memorized all the little pieces of the puzzle that makes up Micah. The faintest spray of freckles across the bridge of their nose. A certain fleck of green in one hazel eye. Spiky gold-white hair that falls to their shoulders. The sharp, yet soft angle of a cheekbone or clavicle. 

The overpowering reek of metal as you keep the rag pressed firmly against their bleeding forehead, even as the cloth soaks through with red in just a few minutes. Why is there so damn much? Seriously, this is getting to be ridiculous. 

Your name is Lanque Bombyx, and you are starting to get a little concerned at the amount of blood coming out of your friend’s body. 

The injury gives you something to focus on instead of the all-consuming rage that burns like hellfire inside of you. It’s shocking in its magnitude, and the more you try to ignore it the more intense it becomes. After all, the fact that they have been wounded is the exact reason why you want to tear out of Wanshi’s room, track Bronya down, and follow through on the promise you made to her not five minutes ago after she struck them: that she would regret to her dying day ever putting her hands on Micah. 

How  _ dare _ she? The only crime Micah was ever guilty of is trying to do the right thing, trying to show a cruel world just an ounce of kindness. And Bronya saw that kindness and called it  _ disobedience,  _ like they were just another one of her jades, her  _ precious girls _ who ought to obey her every command or be punished. If there was ever a part of you that wanted to reconcile with Bronya for all of the shit you two have put each other through over the sweeps, it’s long gone by now. You were a total bastard to her, you know. You’re not afraid to admit it. But now, for every time you acted out or cursed her name or ran off, you wish you had done it ten times over.

You’re brought back from your anger-induced trance when your hand begins to feel wet. Grimacing, you carefully remove the dirty rag and toss it into the sink, leaning over to wash the blood from your palm. Normally this would be a job for Polypa, but Polypa isn’t here right now, so you’ll just have to do it yourself. They don’t react when you turn back to them and tilt their head up so you can take a look at the cuts. In fact, they haven’t so much as reacted to the pain, even when you had to shove the rag hard against their forehead to minimize the blood loss. They’re just… sitting there, staring off into nothing. 

_ Please stop. _ “Micah? Micah, darling, say something.”

Hazel eyes shut and reopen, and the giant knot in your stomach you didn’t know you had loosens when a bit of recognition gives them light. “Oh. Uh, don’t worry about the blood. Head wounds bleed a lot.”

“... So this is normal for a human.”

“Yeah.”

“So you don’t need stitches. Again.”

“Nah, I’m good. Where did Daraya and Wanshi go?”

“They… Daraya went to go get some things she needs from her block. Wanshi went with her.” You don’t tell them that you sent them away because you didn’t want Wanshi to freak out once she saw all the blood, because Daraya would get even more pissed off, and then somebody would end up committing murder. You had to physically restrain both her and Wanshi from mauling Bronya after Micah staggered off to the washroom. On one hand, you would have loved to see your “leader” get her ass handed to her by a teenager and an actual child. On the other, Lynera was with Bronya and somebody would have definitely gotten stabbed. 

“Oh, okay.” They brush their bangs back from their face, wrinkling their nose when some of the hair gets blood on it. Something about them is still… off, though. “Sorry about all of this.”

“What?” You had to have misheard them. “What on Alternia could you possibly be sorry for?”

They wave a hand around noncommittally. “Everything.”

You think your pan breaks from trying to process how they could think that they did anything wrong.  _ “What? _ You-- there is no possible way-- no. Just no. No, no, absolutely fucking not. You will not be taking any blame for this, and that is final.”

The fog begins to clear from their eyes, but they still make no move to get up, wash the blood from their face. There’s no life in them, no spark that’s always lit them up from the inside out, that bright bit of warmth that has never failed to thaw the frost inside of you. It makes your chest hurt in ways it’s never hurt before. You need them to be okay again. 

You used to think that you hated them. Not like how you hate Ursama, of course, but a hate that makes your blood sing, your face burn with heat, colors the world just a little brighter. You hated them because seemingly everybody in Thrashthrust just  _ adored _ this little alien, not for their body or popularity but because of the sheer kindness they exuded from every atom of their being. Hilarious, awkward, sweet Micah, who wore their bloodpusher on their sleeve without one bit of shame, who always had time for everybody no matter what. You hated how content they were with their vulnerability, as if they were perfectly fine with knowing that the world would not hesitate to tear them apart given the chance. You hated how they had the favor of Bronya, seeing time and time again how she treated them as more of a jadeblood than you. Lynera as well, that wretched bitch. 

And then they disappeared, and came back, and now you have no idea what these feelings are that made you roar every horrible thing you could think of at Bronya as she stood before you, claws red with their blood. 

You don’t know what it was about that certain mental image you got during that last thought, but at last something clicks, and you  _ understand.  _

“Micah, if somebody you know was going through a hard time, you would do everything you could to help them, right?” you ask. 

“Uh… of course,” they say slowly. 

“So why aren’t you helping yourself?”

“I don’t… what?” 

You sit back on the chair you stole from Wanshi’s desk, feeling as if the secret of life is revealing itself to you in the most horrific way imaginable. “You’ve always been there for everybody no matter what the personal cost… ”

“I try to be.”

“... because the only way you think you’re worth something is if you can let people use you.”

Their entire body goes stiff. You see them stop breathing for a moment. 

And then, “That’s not true.”

“It is. Those entities that controlled you, the trauma that they gave you runs much deeper than just anxiety and nightmares. It’s directly affected your very way of thinking. Your moirail better be kissing my ass after this, because I’ve cracked the fucking code, darling,” you declare, shoving a claw against their shoulder. 

They explode to their feet, shaking with rage. Hazel irises flash bright green. “I’m not a goddamn  _ doormat! _ I’m just a good friend!”

You rise to tower over them, crossing your arms. Whether they like it or not, Micah is going to see the truth. “Is that why you just auspitized for an entire group of angry jadebloods?”

“I care about all of you!” they spit. 

“Even the one that scarred your face?”

“Bronya’s entire worldview is being shattered--”

“Even the one who knocked you out, tied you up in her study, and almost killed you the first time you met?”

“Lynera’s got some mental issues, but that doesn’t mean--”

“Even me?”

They go quiet for a moment, and then they shake their head. “You know that I lo-- that I’ve always liked you for you who are, Lanque. Every part of you.”

It takes every bit of strength to not completely melt as their words hit you, even as you grab their face between your hands, making sure to avoid their left eye. “Micah. Sweetheart.”

“Babe.”

“You’re a fucking doormat.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m right and you know it.”

They bare their teeth, squeezing their eyes shut as tears gather on their lashes. You can’t watch, so you lean down to rest your chin on their hair, and even though you know they won’t be able to hear it you purr to them. 

“Sorry,” they say again. 

“Shut up.” Your voice rumbles from the purring, and you hope they don’t notice. Before you lose your courage you press a swift kiss to their forehead and put some distance between the two of you, ignoring the surge of red that blooms across their face, followed by the first smile you’ve seen on them in quite some time. 

“How do I look?” they ask dryly. 

“Well…” Reluctantly, you look back to the cuts running down through their left eyebrow, which are just beginning to scab over. “Those will definitely be there for a while. When do humans have their adult molt? They should go away after that.”

“Uhh… humans don’t molt, dude.”

You stare down at them. “You don’t… oh.”

Micah heaves a tired sigh. “My face is gonna be fucked up forever, huh?”

“I’m going to fucking kill Ursama,” you say softly. In a split second, your rage comes back full-force, demanding to be released. “I’m going to rip her throat out and shove it up her own--”

“No,” they order. 

“But she-!”

_ “No. _ She didn’t mean--”

“If you say she didn’t mean to hurt you I’m going to rip the loadgaper out of the wall and use it to bash my own head in.”

“Lanque, I know she meant to hurt me. Just not… like this,” they tell you calmly, reaching up to touch their wounds. 

“It doesn’t matter.”

A soft knocking at the door makes you tense up, and you turn, ready to unleash hell, but it’s just Daraya that pokes her head in. She sees you, and then Micah, and her jaw drops. 

“Holy fuck,” is all she says. 

Micah winces. “That bad, huh.”

Wanshi barges in, pauses at the sight of Micah’s face, and then whips out a bandaid. Very gently, she puts it over the bigger of the cuts and nods. 

“All better?” they ask amusedly. 

“I heard you guys talking about Bronya. Are we gonna go whoop her?” Wanshi begs quietly. 

“No, kiddo, nobody’s whooping anybody,” they tell her firmly, giving you a look when you roll your eyes. “Right now we need to focus on the rebellion. How’s everybody doing, Daraya?”

Daraya shrugs, fiddling with the straps of her backpack. “Dammek says everybody’s recovering well enough the last time I checked. We lost… twenty-three during the attack.”

“Twenty-four,” Micah mumbles. 

Ah. Right. Codakk had gone and died getting the prisoners out. Admirable, really, but you don’t see why Micah’s so hung up about it. It’s not like it was their fault. 

Wanshi looks confused. “What did you lose twenty-four of?”

You turn to her, mentally preparing yourself, but before you can explain her eyes go wide and she mouths  _ “Oh.”  _

Micah nods, eyes shut. 

Nobody speaks for a moment, and then Daraya asks, “So is it true?”

“Hm?”

“That you were covering for me and Lanque.”

“Oh, yep.”

“... And you didn’t tell me because I’d flip out on Bronya and ruin the whole thing.”

“Well…”

“I’m not mad, just amazed at how you played Ursama like a fuckin’ four-stringed musical device. Not even  _ Lynera _ can do that.” Daraya seems genuinely awed at Micah’s powers of deception, and rightfully so. 

They grunt unhappily. “I did what I had to do.”

“Can we  _ please _ whoop her?” Wanshi begs. 

“No. I actually have a plan--” they begin, but before they can go any further you grab their shoulder. They look up at you, concerned. 

“Micah, you’re not okay,” you tell them. 

“Why not?” Wanshi asks, but Daraya shushes her. 

Micah makes a face at you. Their eyes are still too empty. “I guess.”

“You need a break from all of this. You have some other friends on Earth, right? In the future, that is,” you clarify. 

Their face drops as they begin to connect the dots. 

“Yeah…” Daraya agrees quietly. 

“You’re… sending me away?” Micah asks. 

“For a week,” you decide, looking back to Daraya, who nods.

“But-!”

“Micah, as your commanding officer, you’re hereby banished for a week for a mandatory vacation,” Daraya declares. Her tone sounds a lot like Bronya’s when she gives orders, and it never fails to make you feel a little uneasy. 

_ “Commanding officer--” _

“Yep. Effective immediately.”

“No!” they protest, and it tears you up inside to see them like this, but it’s for their own good. You know they’ll listen, even if they don’t like it. 

“You’ll feel better after you get some fresh air!” Wanshi insists. 

They slump over, defeated. 

“Sorry, Micah. But you are kind of a wreck,” Daraya sighs. 

“I just want to help,” they protest. 

“Then help yourself, sweetheart. For once in your life, be  _ selfish,”  _ you implore, grabbing their face between your hands again. “For me?”

They release a breath you didn’t even know they were holding. 

“For you,” they finally agree. 

Nothing else is said about the subject. They don’t meet your eyes before they flash away in a burst of light. 

Daraya is the first to speak. “So, now that they’re gone…”

“As much as it pains me to say it, I won’t go against Micah’s wishes. They want to do things their own way,” you growl. 

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Wanshi giggles. 

You give them both a look, which Daraya returns as she crosses her arms. “Dude, a turtleneck can only hide so much for so long.”

“We’re not having this conversation,” you snap, storming out of the bathroom with the girls right behind you. 

“Lanque, come  _ on. _ If you just fess up both Natiri and Aviann owe me thirty boonbucks each.”

Heat rushes to your face, and you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself from demanding to know how many people think you and Micah are… involved. Which you aren’t. That would be ridiculous.

“I think you two would be cute together!” Wanshi announces. 

“Wanshi, do you know of any other jadebloods who would be interested in joining the rebellion?” you ask as you stalk down the corridor to the main cavern. 

“Oof, changing the conversation, are we? Loser. And no, because people here are boring,” she complains, kicking a pebble past you. 

“Sorry, kid,” Daraya sighs. 

Wanshi’s silent for a moment, and then she asks, “When am I gonna be old enough to join you guys? I want to fight, too.”

“Not for some time,” you tell her firmly. 

“You guys suck!”

“Yeah, I know.”

The three of you duck behind the storage unit and halt for a moment. Wanshi pouts as you ruffle her hair. 

“Is Micah gonna be okay?” she asks. 

“Micah is… going through a lot. More than most go through during their entire lives,” you tell her honestly. 

“... Oh.”

“Take care of yourself, okay?” Daraya orders, before marching off into the tunnel that’ll take her to the surface. 

Wanshi looks up at you with big, sad eyes, and you can’t help but feel a little sorry for her. She’s stuck down here with the rest of the jades, living the same boring routine over and over again, while you and Daraya fight for a better future. 

“Stay safe, Wanshi,” you murmur, before following Daraya into the darkness. 

Out on the mountainside, you find Daraya flipping through the pages of the Sufferer’s book. She looks like Wanshi after she gets her hands on the newest  _ Soldier Purrbeasts  _ novel, which is really saying something. 

“If you don’t use that thing as an excuse to spend a day with Entykk, I will snap,” you snort, taking long strides so she has to jog to keep up with you. 

She shuts it and glowers at you. “Oh, so you can tease me about Tyzias but I can’t tease you about Micah?”

“Yes. Because there is nothing going on between me and Micah.”

“Whatever, man. Just don’t break their bloodpusher when you inevitably fuck up.”

“Bitch.”

“Slut.”

“Bucket-licker.”

“Prep.”

“Oh, now that’s just going too far--”

She smirks, and you make to shove her over, but that’s when the faintest whisper of a footstep over a fallen leaf reaches your ears from somewhere behind you. 

You don’t say anything to Daraya, just lock eyes with her and point your ears back. Her jaw clenches, and she nods. The two of you keep walking, but you fall back so that you’re between her and whoever’s following. 

This time you do shove her, gesturing to a pair of large sprucesteel trees up ahead. “Damn, it’s dark down there.”

“Don’t fall, beanpole.”

Just as the two of you pass the trees, you split off to duck behind each of them. Moving as quickly and silently as possible, you double back through the forest, navigating almost entirely by sound and touch. The clouds cover the moons tonight, and you can’t see shit when the foliage gets dense. 

Another faint sound, the brush of cloth over bark. They’re good, but you’re even better. 

You do a few calculations and circle around to where you think they might be. The smell of a maulpoppy bush comes in from the left, about one lawn circle-length away. From the right is the wet smell of mud from a creek. Dead center is a fallen deathorn tree. 

Jumping on to it, you carefully make your way up the trunk. From the vantage point, you can more or less see the trail, as well as the outlines of the woods. A nocturnal featherbeast calls out in the distance. 

And just below you, a shadow shifts. 

_ There you are.  _

No time to waste. You fall over and let gravity do the work. 

Of course, your aim is perfect. You slam down on to your target with a screech and knock them to the ground. A shocked squeal pierces the night, and you feel needle-sharp claws frantically raking over your stomach. 

Thank troll Jegus for thick jackets. 

You grab your would-be assailant around the throat and squeeze hard, but a strong kick to your chest sends you flying backward. Just as you hit the ground, you flip over and come back at them, swinging at pitch blackness. 

Something connects, a few branches snap, and you and your opponent fall back to the ground. This time, you grab them by their hair and shove them into the forest floor as hard as you can. 

_ “Shit!” _

Wait. 

You know that voice. 

A sort of furious glee bubbles up from your gut as you grab the troll beneath you and fling them out into the trail. Leaping after them, you land beside their gangly form and pick them up by the scruff to look them in the eye. 

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” you drawl. 

Lynera Skalbi slaps at your arm with a rattling hiss. “Let  _ go _ of me you disgusting-!”

“Oh, dear, you are in no place to be making any sort of demands. Daraya!”

Daraya comes flying out of the forest and skids to a halt. Her hair has many leaves in it. “Yooooo, no fucking  _ way.” _

The two of you burst out laughing, and you let Lynera fall into the dirt. 

“Hey, Lanque,” Daraya begins with a snicker. “You know how Micah said they didn’t want us going after Bronya?”

“You wouldn’t dare-!” Lynera shrieks. 

“I do, yes,” you respond, ignoring the girl at your feet. 

“Well, they didn’t say anything about Lynera, did they?”

It takes a second for your pan to register what she’s implying (it has been a long night, after all), but when it does, you can’t stop yourself from grinning ear to ear. 

You and Daraya turn towards Lynera, and you see the exact moment she metaphorically shits herself. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. 

“Now, wait--” she says, trembling. 

“Remember that time you called me a good-for-nothing cunt?” Daraya points out. 

“Or when you said I'd be better off dead?” you spit. 

“I-I didn’t mean it!”

“Did you?”

You and Daraya are pretty much on top of her now. She’s growing panicked, trying to scramble away as stealthily as possible given her position. 

“Wait, before you beat me!” Lynera gasps, raising both hands to show she’s unarmed. 

“Oh, this ought to be good--”

“Things are getting strange down in the caverns--”

“Can we just take out her bellowsac enclosure already?”

“When I was following you earlier I heard Wanshi say there aren’t any jades who want to fight, but that’s not true--”

“Why should we-?”

_ “Because I want to join the rebellion!” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all thank you so much for waiting! Finals were a bitch but I am FINALLY on winter break, so have this absolutely massive fucking chapter as a reward. 
> 
> Just so we're clear, Riverbound does not occur in the same universe as canon Hiveswap! The events that took place when Joey came to Alternia were different in the RB verse because I say so. All will be revealed in time ;). 
> 
> Yes, Micah was highkey disassociating at the beginning of the chapter. And Bronya... needs to figure her shit out. Rip.


	40. Of Ghosts, Fabled

“Hey, aren’t you the streamer guy?”

The words take a moment to register, as you’re half asleep in a pile you’re sharing with complete strangers-- how the mighty (sort of) have fucking fallen-- but when they do you jerk upright, ready to haul ass. To where, you have no idea, but you aren’t ready to get culled just yet. 

Your name is Cirava Hermod, and ever since Xefros took you to the rebellion’s secret lair your old life seems like it belongs to someone else. Barely the remnants of a forgotten dream, even. 

Once you see who spoke you relax a little. It’s the oblong meat product dude… Diemen, you think? Wack. He seems pretty chill, though. 

“Uh, yeah,” you say without thinking. 

Diemen nods. “Cool. My pan’s been a mess ever since this started, and for whatever dumb reason I’ve been laying here all day thinking about how many of your streams I missed because I was hiveless. Am hiveless. Whatever. And now I’m in a giant cave with the rebellion in a civil war. I’m not the only one who’s going kinda crazy, right?”

“Nah, dude, it’s… I think it’s pretty valid to feel like nothing makes sense anymore,” you tell him, staring up into space. “How’s the leg?”

“Eh, Dammek says I won’t need to get it chopped off, so good.”

“Lit.”

“Aye.”

“Ayyyyy.”

“Can you two shut up?” a bronzeblood hisses. 

“Sorry,” you mumble. 

There’s a long moment of silence, only broken by a little kid crying somewhere on the other side of the cavern. Too many of the younger trolls here don’t have their lusii anymore, and while some of the older rebel fighters have stepped up to help look out for them, you know it’s just not the same. You don’t blame the kids, though. Waspdad went and beefed it from old age not too long ago, and it still hurts to remember him and all the good times you had together. 

_ I miss you, man. I just hope you’re proud of me for joining the rebellion.  _

Diemen sighs and rolls over, turning back to you. “Wanna snoop around?”

Well, you’re not going back to sleep anytime soon. The lack of sopor slime is letting your nightmares return in full force, and it sucks enough ass to get off a load gaper. Besides, you’re already liking Diemen. “Yeah.”

Quietly, the two of you roll out of the pile and slink away, carefully stepping over unconscious bodies sprawled out on the ground. Nobody seems to be dead or in the process of dying, which is a nice change from when everybody got back from the attack on the prison compound place. 

“Hey, Cirava?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry if this is personal, but, uh… did you lose anybody in the battle?” Dieman asks sheepishly. 

_ The heck? _ “Nah, why?”

“It’s just… I need somebody to practice with. My powers, I mean,” he explains. 

“What kind of powers? Oh, right… dead stuff?”

“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Communing with the dead. I figured it only only recently, actually. Like, why my telekinesis was always so shitty, I guess. Turns out I’m just good at something else!”

“That’s pretty dope, actually,” you say in amazement. “Creepy, but dope AF. Are there, like, any ghosts in here?”

“There’s a few that hang around, yeah. One’s the other goldblood girl that got killed, I’ve tried talking to her but she’s still trying to process everything. Oh, and some indigo guy. He hangs out with that little purpleblood kid a lot. I think he can see the dead, too. The kid, I mean.”

“Clowns can do that?”

“I guess.”

“Weird. I… lost my lusus not too long ago,” you admit. “Did you want to try and summon him or something? Is there some rustblood ritual you gotta do, or-?”

“Your lusus?” Diemen stiffens. 

“Uh-huh? Does it only work on trolls?”

“I…” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. That’s why I want to practice. I want to bring back my lusus so I can say goodbye. For real this time, because when my hive got bombed I didn’t…”

“Aw, man, that’s fucking brutal.” You clap his shoulder, hoping this isn’t getting too pale for him. You’ve done way too much freaky shit for the camera to be bothered by that kind of stuff anymore, but you don’t want to make Diemen uncomfortable. “Look, my dude. I don’t know your tragic backstory or whatever, but what I do know is that not getting to say goodbye doesn’t mean you did something wrong, or whatever. It sucks, but it doesn’t mean your lusus is out there wandering the afterlife cranky as all shit because you guys didn’t get a proper farewell. If that was the case we’d get a lot more angry ghosts around here, right?”

“But nobody knows for sure,” he protests. 

You shrug. “Nope. That’s just how it be in this bitch of a reality.”

Diemen doesn’t look any more satisfied than he had when you both left the pile. You kind of want to pap him, but like, in a totally platonic way. Ha ha. 

Maybe you can distract him, just for now. “Can you show me?”

He smiles, just a little, and then his eyes unfocus. The black of his pupils swallows up the yellow. You stumble back in shock and just a little bit of fear. 

“Holy shit, what the-!”

Beside him, the air ripples like somebody throwing a rock into a pond, but more… fuzzy, somehow. The apparition of a large oliveblood appears, her wild black hair falling to her waist. Her eyes are completely white, glowing like stars in the night sky. It’s the scariest shit you’ve ever seen, and you’ve seen a lot of scary shit. 

And then your guts fall out of your ass when you realize she isn’t just big: she’s an  _ adult.  _

“Diemen!” you yelp, but the rustblood is zoned the fuck out. 

_ “Can you see me?” _ the oliveblood demands. Her voice echoes inside your mind, rattles your bones with something ancient and desperate.  _ “Look here, kid!” _

“Oh, fuck me,” you wheeze. 

_ “I know what you lot are trying to do down here, and let me tell you; me and the others were here before. There’s hidden caverns deeper into the ground that tells our story. I’m the one who wrote it all down, so that it will never be lost to the Empire,” _ she says, urgency laced through her tone like needles. 

“W-What others?”

_ “The first rebellion. My name is M--” _

Diemen jerks out of his trance with a gasp and falls to his knees. The strange woman dissipates like mist in sunlight. As quickly as she comes, she’s gone. 

You rush over to him and pull him to his feet. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, man, I should not have done that,” he wheezes. He’s shaking from horns to toes. “I-I don’t know wh-who that was, but she’s been here a while. The longer a spirit has been around, the harder they are to bring back to the living-g world.”

“She said she was from the first rebellion.” You realize you’re still holding on to him and quickly let him go. 

“I’d say you're full of shit, but she was  _ old. _ Old as these tunnels. I can feel it.” He flushes burgundy. “You… you believe me, right?”

“No, dude, I think we’ve both got the same idea.”

The two of you stand there in silence for a while, just trying to process everything that just happened. Your pan is having a lot of trouble accepting the fact that you just spoke to a ghost, never mind that she was a ghost from the first rebellion. 

“... Should we tell Dammek and Xefros?” Diemen asks, nervous. “I mean, Xefros is way better at communicating with ghosts than I am.”

You think about it and shake your head. “Nah. We should find those secret tunnels first. The tetrarchs have enough to deal with right now.”

“Okay, okay,” he agrees. 

“... Wanna come get high as shit with me?”

“Yes,  _ please.” _

::: 

Your name is Polypa Goezee, and if that little punk  _ rat _ doesn’t pick up her palmhusk this damn instant you’re storming the caverns by yourself. 

“What the hell, Jonjet?” you hiss, furiously typing text after text to said jadeblood before scrolling back up to the one she sent you:

_ Bronya found us. Micah’s hurt. I’ll update ASAP.  _

“What does it  _ mean?” _ you demand. Of course, because the universe loves making you die inside, your fifth call goes straight to voicemail yet again, and therefore you don’t get any answers. Crap. 

“What did your peas-for-pans alien do now?” 

You pick up your cup and chuck it at Tegiri’s head. “Shut it!”

He grunts as it bounces off one of his horns and clatters to the ground. Ardata chained him to the wall, but the chain is long enough for him to lay comfortably on the dusty old loungeplank Dammek somehow got down here. 

“If they got offed by a  _ jadeblood _ I’m going to piss myself laughing,” he snorts. 

“They’re not dead. I’d know if they were dead,” you snap back at him. 

“Probably not. That tiny idiot is ridiculously hard to kill.”

“My moirail is not an idiot.”

He gives you a look, and you roll your eyes so hard you almost see the back of your skull. “Okay, so maybe they’re a little bit of an idiot.”

_ “Hai.” _

Your ringtone goes off, and this time Daraya is the one calling you. With a growl, you accept the call and bring it to your ear. “What happened? Where are they?”

_ “Chill, Goezee, they’re fine. Well, Bronya slapped the shit out of them and now they’ve got some new sickass scars, but they’ll be okay. I sent them off to go see their human friends for a little bit. They’ll be back, like, tomorrow because of time travel or whatever.”  _

“She fucking WHAT?!”

_ “Yeah, it was wild. Don’t worry, Lanque and I let her know what’s up.” _

“Daraya what the fuck, you better be fucking kidding me right now. Where. Is. Ursama.”

_ “The caverns? I dunno. I’m not her lusus.” _

“Why didn’t you send them to me? I’m their damn moirail!”

She sighs.  _ “Look, dude, I know that you know that Micah’s not doing good. Mentally, I mean. But they kind of hit a breaking point back there and I… they need their own people right now. Humans. You get that, right?” _

“But…” You get what she’s saying, but it still hurts. Micah’s always been able to lean on you, confide in you, and vice versa. What changed? 

_ “Anyways, we’re on our way back. Could you do me a solid and tell Dammek and Xefros we’re gonna have a new rebel for the force?” _

You blink. “A what? Who?”

_ “You remember Lynera, right?” _

“... You’re joking.”

_ “Somehow I’m not.” _

“Isn’t she the one obsessed with Ursama? The same bitch who  _ hurt my moirail?” _

_ “Yeah, I dunno either. It’s suspicious as hell, but she seems like she really wants to join us. Plus, she’s great with knives. If we get her some proper training she’d be a real asset on the battlefield,” _ Daraya adds. 

“That doesn’t make me feel better at all.”

_ “That’s Micah’s job, not mine. Bye.” _

She hangs up, leaving you standing there like a moron. 

Tegiri chucks a rolled-up candy wrapper at the disposal bin and misses. “Micah disappeared again? What a surprise.”

“Would you stop being such a bitch?” you snarl, turning on him. “I’ve given up so much of my time to make sure you’re okay, to help you be okay, and this is how you repay me? By making my life miserable?”

He’s on his feet in a flash. “And you made my life miserable when you chose  _ them!” _

“Why wouldn’t I? You refuse to grow, Tegiri, you refuse to see the world in anything other than black and white. This isn’t like your stupid propoganda animes, this is real life. I’m not putting up with a society that wants people like me dead, not anymore! I deserve to live and be happy! What’s so controversial about that?”

“Thrashthrust is all but burned to the ground! Three hundred  _ thousand  _ are dead! How could that be sending a message of peace? You rebels talk about a new world where everything is better, but then you turn around and riot until there’s nothing left.” 

You snort. “Well, nothing else seemed to be working.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am, actually.”

“Our people function like this--”

“Because we have no choice. We don’t know anything else. I’m done talking about this with you,” you call over your shoulder. “I thought that maybe we’d be able to work through this together, but it’s been made abundantly clear that you’ve got your head so far up the Empress’s ass you can’t see what’s right under your nose.”

“Wait!”

For whatever reason, you stop, one hand on the doorknob. 

“Don’t go,” he pleads. 

“Why not?”

Tegiri sits down heavily. When you turn to look at him, you can clearly see the bruises under his eyes. “Because I… please, I’ve been alone here forever. It’s driving me insane.”

His voice tugs on your heartstrings. This dude drives you up the damn wall, and you know you do the exact same to him, but through all of the sweeps that you’ve known each other that’s never stopped anything. 

You’ll give him one last chance. After that, it’s over. 

_ I just hope I’m doing the right thing. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was the Disciple. ;)
> 
> Happy Hanukkah to any Jewish readers out there!


	41. Of Vacations, Sorely-Needed

Your name is MICAH and… it’s kind of terrifying, really. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but now that you’ve been forced to really confront your mental health (or lack thereof), it’s obvious how quickly you’ve begun to deteriorate. The rest of the universe is so far away, and you’re here.  _ Here _ being the inside of your own mind, which you can’t seem to break free of no matter how hard you try, like trying to run underwater with weights strapped to your legs. 

A tiny part of you that’s still sane painfully and logically watches as you get your stuff from your corner of the rebellions’ cave, zapping in and out quickly enough so that you don’t have to interact with other people. If anybody saw you, you didn’t notice, or maybe you just didn’t care if they noticed. 

… Okay, no. You can’t go back to the alpha kids’ universe while you’re having a breakdown. They can’t see you while you’re in the middle of whatever _ this _ is. 

Home. You just wanna go home. 

Where is home? 

You used to have a home, here on Alternia. The old watchtower. There was a coffee machine from Tagora that still had the price tag on it, even though he said it was a piece of junk he just had lying around, and a spare ‘coon for when one of your friends stayed over, and a sort-of functional kitchen, and a generator in the way back for power so you could wash your hands and turn the heat on at night. Who gave you the generator? It was Skylla, right? 

Where is she now? Up in the stars, you suppose, along with Marvus and Vikare and Chahut and Nihkee. If they were still around you would have surely run into them before tonight. 

You miss them all so fucking much. 

No, focus. Home. 

You reach out and grasp on to the fabric of reality, and ask it to take you where you need to go. Half-expecting to be spit out on Jade’s island, you brace yourself for the inevitable wave of heat and the smell of the ocean. 

What you get is heat, all right, but instead of the ocean you recieve what feels like three-hundred percent humidity and a bigass mosquito flying directly into your face. 

Jumping back with a splutter, you slap Satan in insect form away from you and take a look around. The sun is hovering low on the horizon in the east. Mist shrouds the world around you in shades of pink and silver, already beginning to evaporate in the hot morning air. Down the hill, you see a guy hopping into his truck, probably on his way to work. Palm trees sway in the gentle wind, bringing with it the sweet scent of early summer. 

_ Why am I back here?  _

In front of you is the abandoned house you appeared at the last time you let the universe toss you around. The place looks the exact same as when you left it-- shattered windows, the front door almost completely off its hinges. 

“What’s up with weird spacetime shenanigans and Florida, huh?” you ask it. 

The house doesn’t answer. 

Annoyed, you pick up a pebble and chuck it at one of the windows. It  _ plinks _ off the glass and lands in the dirt. In the back of your mind, you can feel reality thinning out around this entire area, with the center of the anomaly inside the house. The shallows of the river bank wash around your thighs, and the current of the other universe so close to your own hums in your bones. You take a couple steps back, suddenly wary. 

You’ll get to the bottom of this some other time. Besides, you’re feeling a little better now. Time to go see your friends and work on saving your last brain cell from death by depression.

Glancing around to make sure you don’t give some poor Floridian a crisis by teleporting in front of them, you zap away, focusing on Dirk’s tower in the middle of the sea. Maybe he’ll have a few words of wisdom to impart upon you for how to deal with all of this shit. 

Unfortunately, the second you teleport into his living room you know you’ll be getting no such thing. 

Roxy’s unconscious in Dirk’s arms, and standing over them is a terrified-looking Jane. Jake is all but hiding behind the couch, staring wide-eyed over the armrest. 

“... you shouldn’t be picking fights with the girl who’s just been through addiction and a near-death experience, Crocker. Honestly, what would Micah think?” Dirk spits at Jane as he hauls Roxy up to lay her out on the couch. She… she looks like she’s been through hell. Why does she look so thin? Why is she so pale? Oh, God, who hurt your ki-- your friend? 

“I’m thinking what the  _ fuck is going on here?!” _ you cry. 

All four of them jump and turn to face you, all wearing matching expressions of surprise. You look around at Dirk’s gazillion laptops, and some things that kind of look like they belong in a hospital or lab. Mutie, Roxy’s four-eyed cat, meows as he runs over to you to wind around your legs. As far as you can tell, he’s the only one here who seems to think that everything is just fine. 

Dirk’s brows furrow behind his shades. “Dude, what happened to your face?”

“My  _ face--  _ Roxy!” You rush over to her and push her curly hair back from her forehead, which is slick with sweat. “What-why does she look like that? She looks awful?”

Dirk, Jane, and Jake all look at each other like,  _ Well, fuck.  _

“Um, hello again!” Jake peeps. 

“Hi,” Jane whispers. 

Dirk makes a face as he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at you. “So, here’s the thing--”

**“What’s good, Nick Fury? Not in this good Christian household, I’ll tell you that.”**

“Hal, full fucking report, if you don’t mind,” you demand. 

**“Right on, shortstack. At approximately fifteen-seventeen on Thursday of this past week, the Brady Bunch returned from some time-travelling expedition with Roxy here, who was half dead from severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms. She’s stable now… well, sort of. It’ll be another three and a half days before her systems return to baseline. It’ll be at least five years before she fully recovers from the mental trauma caused by her alcoholism,”** Hal explains calmly. 

“Oh my God,” you say. Guilt hits you with the force of a speeding train. Why weren’t you there for her? Why didn’t you notice she was so sick?  _ Why, why, why why-? _

“Yeah, so that’s what we’ve been up to,” Dirk says. 

“And I’m sorry, did Hal just say that you guys  _ time-travelled?” _ you yell. 

“Um… no?”

**“Yeah, Dirk got a thing that lets him time travel.”**

“Hal you fucking snitch--”

You stare at Dirk in disbelief. “How did you even-- you know what? You’re grounded.”

“Wha-- how are you gonna ground me?”

“I’m going to give you a very chilly look that shows how disappointed I am that you went and did something so dangerous.”

“Bitch, you time travel everywhere you go.”

“Because it’s a natural ability of mine that I have already mastered,” you shoot back. You proceed to give him a very chilly look that shows how disappointed you are that he went and did something so dangerous. He huffs, crosses his arms, and mutters something about going to get a cold washcloth for Roxy before sulking off in the way teenage boys do when something doesn’t go their way. 

Jake and Jane creep over to peer down at Roxy as she stirs, throwing an arm over her face with a groan. Mutie jumps up on her stomach and starts kneading like a baker who’s on the verge of losing his shop. You take the opportunity to set down your backpack, because you’ve got a lot of shit in there and it’s heavy. 

“Oh, ow, Mutie, ya little stinker,” she complains, before she sees you, Jane, and Jake, and her eyes grow round. “Wha-- Micah!”

You throw your arms around her and hug her to your chest. She’s way taller than you, so it’s kind of awkward, but you don’t really care. “Hey, Roxy. Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late, I’m just messy,” she chuckles. Her voice is hoarse with exhaustion. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” you promise her. “I’ll be there every step of the way, and we’ll get through this. Got it?”

“Yeah… okay,” she murmurs, followed by a giant yawn. “You’re not a hallucination, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Hm, sounds like something a hallucination would say.”

“Can a hallucination do this?” You stand up as quickly as possible and stumble back into a chair because of your iron deficiency. 

Roxy snorts. “Geez, don’t kill yourself.” Then, she sits up on her elbows and takes a better look at you, violet eyes narrowing. “Hold up. What in the fresh Kentucky-fried fuck happened to your face? It’s still scabbing over and everything!”

“Uhhhh… I got into a fight,” you tell her. 

Jake gives you a look. “Mate, you’re four-foot-eleven, if that. Please don’t get into any more fights. Please.”

“It’s unbecoming,” Jane agrees, patting your shoulder. 

You stick your tongue out at them. Nobody needs to know the mess behind what really happened, least of all the kids, so you keep your mouth shut. 

Dirk comes back from the kitchen, damp washcloth in hand, and drops it on Roxy’s face. She makes a quiet sound of relief and all but mashes it into her forehead. 

**“Yo, Roxy, your blood sugar is still low as shit. Eat some food,”** Hal orders. 

“Oh, okay.”

“So, I’ve been doing some research, and it turns out that she’s gonna be at risk of seizures for a few more days while Hal keeps working on her systems,” Dirk says, ever the dude who has to be doing something at all times. “That means somebody’s gotta be keeping an eye on her at all times in case shit goes south.” 

You raise a hand. “I can do it. I’ve had a seizure before, so now we can be seizure buddies.”

“Seizure buddies!” Roxy cheers weakly. You help her stand, and Jane awkwardly shuffles by as you guys make your way to the kitchen. She looks almost… guilty? Neither she or Roxy look at each other as Jane as she cracks some eggs into a bowl to make an omelette. Jake hovers around, fussing over Mutie as he wails for attention. He lets Jake hold him for a few moments, purring at a volume that would make a troll jealous, before squirming away, thumping to the floor, and running over to Dirk to bite at his socks. It’s all kind of weird, but then again three out of the four kids haven’t had personal human interaction in living memory. 

“So, uh… Dirk,” you say, deciding that it’s up to you to break the tension. “Time travel.”

He pops open a bag of chips and starts munching. How the fuck did he even get chips all the way out here? “Am I still grounded?”

“Your grounding is temporarily lifted.”

“Okay, so I had a funky dream where this fish-looking dude, who turned out to be an Alternian troll, gave me this piece of shit which would supposedly allow me to travel through time and space. I asked him where the hell he got it, to which he said ‘I dunno, an older version of Aradia but with wings showed up in one of my dreams and told me to give it to you because she’s busy or whatever’. I don’t know who Aradia is, though. Then he told me about the rebellion and stuff and that we all need to go over to your universe,” Dirk explains with a shrug. At his feet, Mutie gives up on trying to maul his socks and trots off to attend to whatever mutant four-eyed cats need to attend to. 

You stare at him, trying and failing to connect the pieces of everything that he just told you. What, and you cannot stress this enough, the  _ fuck _ is going on here? There’s something strange afoot, you just know it. Doc Scratch had definitely been involved with bringing that Joey girl to Alternia for whatever reason, but to your knowledge hasn’t been doing any more weird shit. Is he even still around? Could he be the one leading you back to that abandoned house in Florida? 

Also, why did Aradia choose  _ Eridan _ for this mission? What gave him the ability to reach across realities so he could connect with Dirk? None of this is making any damn sense. It’s not like Dirk would need any fancy machine to cross universes and time-travel, not with you around. You suppose it’s for the best, though, because if he and the others didn’t find Roxy when they did… 

You don’t want to think about it. 

Dirk stares at you, lips pressed together in a firm line. “So, like, no epic words of wisdom from the master of insane space-time shenanigans? You don’t know what’s going on?”

“Dude, does it look like I have any idea what’s going on? I’ve been kinda busy,” you huff. 

“Oh, yeah, the rebellion. How’s that going?”

“Fucking amazing, thanks for asking. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, some of them my friends, and there’s nothing--” You cut yourself off by pinching your arm. “We’ll be fine. We just have to keep going.”

Dirk, Roxy, and Jake all look at each other, and Jane makes that particular unsatisfied noise elderly ladies tend to make when they sense bullshit in their general vicinity. 

“... Right. Well, it should only take a few days for Roxy’s systems to return to baseline, thanks to Hal, so we don’t need to make any life-changing decisions just yet,” Dirk says. 

**“Three-and-a-half. Normally it would be a few weeks before she’s out of the danger zone, but as long as we keep the IV in at night we’ll be able to reduce that time by a fuckton,”** Hal assures everybody.

“Bruh, I hate the IV,” Roxy groans. 

**“Yeah, having a physical form that’s organic sounds gross. Did I tell you guys about the time Dirk tried to make Mexican street tacos off the old internet yet?”**

_ “Hal,” _ Dirk groans, scrubbing his face with his hands while the rest of you crack up, and the remnants of uneasiness that weighed down upon the tower finally wither away. 

<>

After everybody’s finished eating and Roxy’s IV gets put back in for the night, you head out to the porch to watch the sunset. 

It’s beautiful out here, lonely as it is. You think about a younger Dirk, watching sunset after sunset by himself, the only human interaction available being through a computer. Jake and Roxy, too. Even Jane grew up painfully isolated as the heiress of a corporation, despite having her dad around. No amount of private tutors, online school, or baking hobbies could ever constitute an actual childhood.

In a sense, you suppose, Alternia is the same and the exact opposite, or at least in Thrashthrust it is. Surrounded by one’s peers, but still alone. Is the stranger coming up the street a potential ally, or are they going to try and kill you? 

Dang, now you’re missing your troll friends. You hope they’re all doing okay. Polypa’s gonna throw a hissy fit once you come back for just running off on her, but she’ll understand. Hopefully Tegiri can pull his head out of his ass for once if she needs something. Daraya, Tyzias, and the tetrarchs will handle the rest of the rebellion’s shit. And Mallek… fuck. You have to make things right with him. He’s your friend, too, and he always will be. Losing your temper with him for not wanting to be in the heat of a whole war was a real bitch move. Once you go back, you’re going to track him down and do whatever you need to do for him to know how sorry you are for behaving the way you did. He deserves so much more than that. 

The memory of a soft pair of lips against your forehead makes all the pain go away, just for a second, as you recall how Lanque called you out on all your stupidity and all but forced you into a vacation. God, what would you do without him? Annoying fucking bastard. The fact that he was right about you needing to step away from a moment pisses you off, but the way he shows that he cares makes you feel all tingly inside. How does he always know the right thing to tell you and then say it in a way that makes you want to punch him in the dick? 

“Man, I can hear you thinking from inside.”

You quickly press your cool hands to your warmer-than-usual cheeks as Dirk slides open the patio door and hands you a soda, which you accept gratefully. “Shit’s fucked, my dude. How have you been?”

“Well, not too bad when Roxy wasn’t trying to die on us. Having other people around is… good. It’s really good,” he says quietly. 

You grin and clasp his shoulder. “Good job on saving the day, Dirk. I’m so proud of you, you know that?”

“I-- yeah,” he rasps, looking like he’s in his own little world all of the sudden. “Ha, so does that mean I’m not grounded anymore? It was brutal, I’m telling you. This tower must be the  _ Titanic,  _ because it’s been eighty-four years since I’ve felt alive, call me Jack because I am not on top of the world.”

“Yeah, you’re not grounded anymore,” you promise, sipping on what tastes like some Coca-cola knockoff. 

He does a little motion with his arms that might have been the whoa, but you can’t be for certain. Then, he stops and does a double take, staring at somewhere just above your brows.

“What’s up?” you ask. 

He lowers his shades, amber eyes piercing in the evening light. “Uh, you’ve got a giant bruise in the shape of a hand that’s slowly beginning to cover the left half of your face. Should I be concerned? Did you get bitch-slapped?”

You sigh. “Well… yeah, I got bitch-slapped.”

“... Should I… do you need me to fuck somebody up?”

“No, buddy, that’s alright. I can figure out my own messes. Promise.”

He doesn’t look happy with your answer, so you punch him in the arm as you finish the rest of your soda. “Wanna show everybody how I can wield Sord?”

“Oh my sweet fuck,  _ yes.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk: I don't need anybody, I'm the coldest bastard to have ever walked this planet--
> 
> Micah: Hey I'm proud of you kid
> 
> Dirk: :''''''))))
> 
> I think a break from the angst is sorely needed... enjoy Micah and all their adopted children!


	42. Of Family, By Bond and Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha please don't hate me

The night concludes with you showing everybody how the legendary piece of shit known as Sord comes to life in your hands. You try and help Jane hold it when she asks to try, but of course the damn thing almost clips through her hands like the reality-defying fuck it is and you almost end up dropping it on your foot. 

“Don’t cut off your toes,” she yelps, prancing anxiously around as you give it a couple more swings before handing it back to Dirk. 

“One of these days I’m teachin’ you how to shoot a pistol, Janey,” Jake orders. “It’s not right that a lady doesn’t know how to properly defend herself!”

“I can defend myself just fine! When we were at that place with all those pools of water I almost took out Dirk!” Jane insists. 

“‘Almost’ isn’t good enough,” Dirk proclaims. 

“Oh, hush, you. You’re just in a tizzy that I almost beat ya!”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.   
  


“Yes!”

Dirk lunges off the couch and tackles Jane, and the two end up tussling around the living room while Jake cheers them on before leaping in to settle the score once and for all. 

You roll your eyes fondly as Roxy groans, her head in your lap and arms wrapped around your waist. “Tell ‘em to shut uupppppp.”

“Guys, keep it quiet, okay?” you call over. 

Dirk pins Jake down beneath a knee and twists Jane’s arm up behind her back, making her squeal. “Sure. Once they admit that  _ I’m  _ the best, that is.”

“Not a chance, pal!” Jake wheezes. 

Jane breaks away from Dirk’s grasp, as he isn’t holding her that hard, and rolls over to her knees to smooth her skirt back down. “We should play truth or dare.”

“Dare Dirk to get off me!”   
  


“Yes, Dirk, please don’t break his spine,” Jane encourages. You don’t miss the flash of envy that crosses her face as she eyes the boys’ position. It takes a few seconds to remember that she has a crush on Jake. Nothing like unrequited feelings for one’s close friend, right? 

_ Yikes. Sorry, kiddo.  _

“How are we gonna play truth or dare when none of us have ever done anything remotely interestin’ our whole lives,” Roxy mumbles. 

Jake scratches his chin. “Beats me. Uhhhh… truth or dare?”

“... Truth?”

“Have you ever dropped a deuce outside of the loo?”

Roxy snorts. “One time I got bored and took a massive shit… on the roof.”

“On the _ roof,”  _ Jane wheezes. 

“Hey, the roof had it coming.”

“Wow, we’re already off to a good start,” you say, stuck solidly somewhere between grossed out and impressed. “Alright, Roxy, your turn.”

“Okay… uhhh… Dirk. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he says, no hesitation. 

“Go chop your pubes off with a katana.”

“You say that like I’ve never done it before,” he tells her, before getting up, grabbing one of his katanas off the wall and marching off to the bathroom while everybody else loses their minds. You’re laughing so hard you almost knock Roxy right off the couch. 

**“He’s definitely done it before,”** Hal chimes in. 

“Oh my God, oh my God,” you moan, slapping your thigh as quietly as possible to avoid bothering Roxy. Jane is on the floor with her head in her hands.

“Hal, how much blackmail material do you have on dear Dirk, anyways?” Jake begs. 

**“Three megabytes in total.”**

“Jumping Jack Christ--”

It only takes a minute for Dirk to finish and come strutting back into the living room, twirling the blade around without a care in the world. 

“How was the shave, old chap?” Jake snickers. 

“Crispy as fuck, thanks for asking.” He smirks as he shelves the katana before sitting down next to Jane, who you think might be having an aneurysm or something. “Alright, people, the next victim will be… the lady of the hour, Crocker. Truth or dare?”

“You are all going to be the death of me. Dare.”

“Go pee off the porch.”

“I-- why are you guys like this.”

“We’re a bunch of severely isolated teenagers with trauma, little to no social experience, fucked up humor, and absolutely nothing to do?”

“Makes sense. I’ll be right back.”

Roxy cheers as Jake muffles his laughter into a pillow. Even Dirk is grinning, and even though you’re wondering how you ever thought that playing truth-or-dare with four sixteen-year-olds was a good idea… you haven’t had this much fun in a long time. 

“So while she’s out taking a wee…” Jake says, a little hesitant. “Roxy?”

“Mmph?”

“You two aren’t going to try and murder each other after all?”

Roxy snorts. “No, I’m too tired. Besides, she… I know she was just scared for me.”

“I suppose.”

“What’s going on?” you ask, wondering if this has to do with the awkwardness that’s been funking up your already-rancid vibes. 

_ “Nothing,” _ they all quickly say. 

“Teenage drama, huh? Glad I don’t have to deal with that shit anymore,” you snort. 

Jake’s brows furrow. “How old are you, anyways? No offense, of course, but you just have one of those faces that makes you look like you’re either twelve or twenty-five.”

“Oh, pfft, I’m…” You try and remember how old you are. “Well, my birthday is on… I… um… oh. I guess that got wiped from my memories, too. Welp. Somewhere around nineteen? I think?”

Dirk looks at you with an unreadable expression on his face, like he’s formulating some kind of plot, but before he can tell you what’s on his mind Jane comes prancing back in while adjusting her skirt. 

“Best piss of your life or what?” Roxy snickers. 

“It was certainly  _ breezy.” _ Jane gives Jake a look as he rolls over to muffle his giggles in the crook of his arm. “Stop that chuffing, English, before I smack you upside the head!”

“I will absolutely not.”

“Guess we saved the best for last, huh?” Roxy says slyly, flipping over to grin up at you with more teeth than was absolutely necessary. It looks exactly like Rose’s  _ I’m About to Dissect All Your Feelings _ smile and both of them are unnerving as all hell. 

Jane loses interest in threatening Jake’s life to perk up in excitement “Either way, this is going to be very enthralling, I’m sure. Truth or dare, dear friend?”

Oh, boy. “Considering the fact I’m trapped under Roxy’s giant noggin, truth.”

“Nerd,” says Dirk. 

“My head’s not that big--”

“Hmmm… what’s the most insane, off-the-walls, unbelievable thing you’ve ever done?” she demands, clasping her hands together. 

“Damn.” You lean back to stare at the ceiling, trying your best to sort through the timelines that always threaten to screw with your perception of reality. Should you tell them about throwing Vriska’s abusive lusus into a volcano? You’re super proud of that one, not gonna lie. Or maybe… no, you can’t tell them about going nuclear on Dave’s Bro, not with Dirk here. What about clown church? Nah, too traumatic. And you’re not even going to get  _ started _ on absorbing a bigass green sun the size of a universe to become a First Guardian and split this timeline off from the rest of its former reality. “That’s a tough one.”

“Take ya time,” Roxy yawns. 

“Let’s go with… the time I met the Alternian Heiress in another reality and her god-lusus, which is like her parent, and then I talked to some other deity through it… which helped me realize I wanted to help some other friends of mine in the past lead a revolution against their tyrannical government,” you announce. 

Jane, Jake, Dirk, and Roxy all look at each other in dead silence, before looking back to you. 

“Goodness,” Jake finally says. 

“You guys said you were saving the best for last, so…” You glance over at Dirk’s laptop. “Hal! Your turn, Internet Explorer-looking ass.”

**_“Internet Explorer--_ ** **you scrawny fucker.”**

“That’s me. Truth or dare?”

**“Truth.”**

“What’s the weirdest thing your programming has ever come up with?”

**“Oh, that’s easy. That would be Dirk’s forty-eight hour long auto-generated playlist consisting of the** **_My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ ** **soundtrack, various anime theme songs, Cardi B, conspiracy theories, computer programming tutorials, hentai, and one interesting video on why string theory is bullshit.”**

You stare up at the ceiling in wonder as Roxy, Jake, and Jane howl with laughter while Dirk cusses the AI out for making his existence a living hell. 

<>

It takes some effort to coax (read: bribe) the kids into getting their pajamas on and getting ready for bed, with Jane, Dirk, and Jake crashing in a pile on the living room floor and Roxy on the couch beside them. It’s the cutest fucking thing you’ve ever seen; a group of touch-starved dumbasses shoving as close as possible to each other like it’s the last time they’ll ever get to hold another living being. 

Being that you are also a touch-starved dumbass, you end up half-squished under Roxy’s long legs, mindful of the IV that starts at her wrist and ends up at the bag hanging from the rack behind the couch. There isn’t a lot of talking as the five of you drift off to sleep, save for Jane grumbling at Dirk when he accidentally rolls over on her arm. 

Of course, the moment you leave the waking world behind you get launched into the chaos that is your dreamscape. 

You’re standing on a narrow trail leading up the side of a sheer cliff, chilly air whipping your hair about and cutting through your clothes like knives. The watchtower creaks with every gust, ancient metal groaning under the weight of its own structure but holding fast against the gale. Hot pink lightning crackles over the city of Thrashthrust, beyond the treeline, and the resounding roar of thunder is so loud your sternum vibrates. 

_ Crap, crap, crap. _ Flying up the trail with practiced ease, you squeeze through the rusted door to the tower just as the first few drops of acid rain begin to fall. 

Shutting the door behind you and locking it, you head down the hallway that leads to the main living space, where you first set up camp a year or so ago. The air is somehow both musty and bearing the scent of the oncoming storm, as if trying to hold onto the memories of once being a home yet unable to stand the weight of what’s yet to come. 

Everything is exactly where you last left it. The mattress on the floor by the window, the coffee machine on the kitchen counter, a few books Galekh gave you strewn about on the floor beside your bed. A tarp covers the leaky eastern-facing wall, which produces a familiar howl every time the wind blows through it. The ceiling has several suspicious stains here and there. The basket of laundry in the corner is doing a great job of collecting dust-- oh, hey, there’s your favorite bra, now complete with enough spiderwebs to make Vriska jealous. 

“Fucking  _ finally. _ You’re a real hard asshole to reach, you know that?”

He’s sitting in your chair at the desk, resting one elbow on the wood while twirling a pencil. Outside, the storm finally begins for real, and his cape flutters in the draft. Just like the old watchtower, he’s just like how you last remembered him. 

The ugly dark thing inside of you rears its head again, screaming at you to get the fuck out of there, fight him, whatever it takes to put as much distance between yourself and this stupid anime-looking bastard. It’s stupid, because you’re not even afraid of him. 

You’re not afraid of him. 

“Strider.” You nod. 

“Hey. Sweet setup you had here. Should have gotten a computer, though. Better for the eyes than staring at a tiny-ass phone all day,” he tells you. 

“I’ll keep that in mind. Can I help you, or, like, are you back to fuck shit up so that everybody has to play SBURB no matter what?” you demand, crossing your arms. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee, but… actually, no I wouldn’t.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Nah, this whole universe you’ve somehow shielded off from the rest of the multiverse isn’t worth my time anymore, because of how you ruined it so thoroughly… but I do have a couple of questions, if you have the time. Which you will, because I’m the one powering this particular dream. Or nightmare. Whichever one you prefer.”

“What’s up? Here to learn how to forge healthy relationships? ‘Cause I’d love to help you, really, except my raging PTSD that  _ you _ had a hand in causing is making it a little difficult for me to function normally these days,” you sneer. 

“Healthy relationships, huh? Yeah, right. That pretty jadeblood boyfriend of yours was spot on. You’re a doormat to the core.”

Rage, shock, and terror makes you shake as his smirk grows wider. 

How does he know about what’s been going on? How much does he know? 

You shove your fear aside and focus on the anger, letting it hollow out your mind so you have some room to think. Take a deep breath. “Listen, Strider. Whatever you want to know, I’ll answer to the best of my ability. Then, you can return to whatever circle of hell you crawled out of and I can go back to my life. Cool?”

“Whatever. How’d you create these barriers around this universe? And don’t fuck around with me, because I know you were the one that did all these. Nobody else could have.”

“The exact process is… I can’t explain it. I just knew how to cut off this timeline from the parent timeline and then fortify it.”

“You know how you did it.”

“Yes. But there’s no words to do a frickin’ step-by-step. I just asked time and space to separate and it did. I’m telling the truth.”

He tilts his head, and something unbelievably heavy presses down on your brain. It’s like a headache, but without the pain, and when you try and shove it away it leaves without an issue. 

Dirk stiffens. 

For a moment, everything is completely still. Even the storm quiets.

You force yourself to remain where you are as he slowly rises from his chair, huge and threatening in the shadows. He approaches you with slow, steady strides, but the way his jaw is clenched gives him away. 

“What are you,” he finally asks. 

You don’t know what it is about that question that sets you off. Somehow, you know then how to turn the tables on him, and without hesitation you shove the memory of you absorbing the Green Sun into yourself and tearing this timeline away from the rest, fueled by determination and fury and love and what you now realize is your unbreakable will to live. 

You as a person are not unbreakable. Oh, you’ve broken alright, and you know that if… no,  _ when  _ you heal you won’t be the same Micah you were before. But that’s okay, because no matter how many times you fall apart, you are strong enough to pull yourself back together. Human, friend, wanderer, rebel, peacemaker, fighter. All of those words describe the shattered parts of the mosaic that is your soul. 

Breakable, but durable and strong. 

“Listen,” you tell him, green and white fire burning along your skin. “You want to know how I did it? Here’s your answer, you pathetic bitch. I’m the First Guardian of this universe. I made myself, atom by  _ fucking atom, _ into somebody that would be powerful enough to protect the people I love from monsters like you. Maybe I don’t know where I came from, but nothing, and I mean  _ nothing _ is going to stop me from saving Alternia and finding my family again. My happy ending is out there, Strider, and whether you like it or not I’m going to get it.” 

The ugly thing that had been howling in fear was now roaring in triumph. You’re grinning like a wolf standing over its injured prey, about to deliver the killing bite. 

Strider takes a step back, and you match him. The fire inside and out burns brighter and brighter. You’re taking back your dream, your mind from him, clearing away the dust of your old home, banishing the storm outside to let the moonlight shine in through the windows. 

“Any more questions?” you ask sweetly. 

He looks like he’s half a second away from shitting himself. You burn the sight into your mind so you can get yourself off to it later. 

Pulling himself together takes a massive amount of effort, but he manages. “How do you know you have a family? I created you in a petri dish.”

“I just know. I have dreams about my mom and the house I grew up in.”

“She’s given up on you. She thinks you're dead.”

You spit on the floor. “You don’t know jack shit about my mom, bucko.”

“How about you rub your last two brain cells together for a second and think about it?” He’s desperate, but he’s not about to run away anymore. “If I created you, and your mother raised you… let’s just say me and your mama go way back, kid. In this timeline we do, at least.”

“Liar. You’re making stuff up to fuck with me!”

Strider advances on you, and the wind picks up again. “You were our little… project, I suppose. She opened up a tear in reality and somehow we made contact across universes. Smart, wild, arrogant, and a real bitch when it came to getting her way. She was just  _ obsessed _ with inter-dimensional travel, you know? Wanted to see how humans would deal with it.”

You hiss at him like a rabid animal. 

“The first test subject was herself, of course, and she almost died the second she tried to pierce the fabric of reality again. We figured out that no normal human would be able to do it--”

“Why were you helping her? What was in it for you?” you snarl. 

“Nothing you need to worry about, that’s what. So we decided to create a human that would be a little more… durable. With ectobiology, of course, because the other way is… eugh, she’s really not my type, if you get what I mean. But before we could complete the experiment, she ran off with little baby you and shut down the experiment to close the connection between my world and hers. I don’t know why, either, so don’t yell at me about that.” He crosses his arms and glares down at you, horribly smug. 

You think you’re beginning to see what he’s getting at. Of course he’s telling you this now, because he knows it’ll hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before. 

“Get away from me,” you whisper. 

Strider claps his hands once, twice. “Oh, boom. There it is. Give it up for our dear hero.”

“Why?  _ Why are you doing this?” _

“Because you wanted to know where you came from? Yes, it’s true, the dramatic twist to Micah’s tragic, awful story. The perfect dose of angst to an already traumatized protagonist. The classic reveal of  _ hey, kid, half of your chromosomes came from me. _ Ain’t that a bitch?”

With a snap of his fingers, you jolt awake. 

Somehow, you disentangle yourself from Roxy without waking her up and all but stumble to the bathroom and flick the lights on. Your reflection stares back at you in the mirror. 

Something in your heart shatters a little when you find what you’re looking for. The spray of freckles across the bridge of your nose. The way your blonde hair spikes up in the back. A sharp jawline that isn’t just from being underweight. It’s in the shape of your nose, in how your ears curve along the sides of your head. 

You really do look like him. 

But your eyes are hazel, not amber. At least… at least you have your mother’s eyes. Her eyes are hazel, right? How do genetics even work? 

“Maybe you fucked real good with me this time,” you tell your reflection, each word coming out like broken glass. “But guess what, Strider?  _ I fuck back.  _ So get ready, because I’m coming for you, and you’re gonna regret the day you cooked my crazy ass up in that lab of yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ult. Dirk: *sees Micah having a good time away from Alternia, trying to get some rest and heal*
> 
> Ult. Dirk: I think the fuck not you trick ass bitch
> 
> So... yeah. When I watched Dirk's Pesterquest route and it was revealed that Ult. Dirk created MSPAR I was SHOOK. And then I started Riverbound and yeah. Not me wondering how to make Micah suffer every single chapter lol. 
> 
> Don't worry too much about them, though. They're getting stronger, whether they know it or not.


	43. Of Shitstorms, Literal and Metaphorical

What wakes you up in the morning isn’t the piercing rays of sunlight that glitter off the ocean and into your eyeballs, nor is it the racket of Jane clattering around the kitchen, or even Jake singing some obscure sea shanty while he practices knife twirling. 

No, it’s to a pair of striking amber eyes staring down at you from above. 

_ “Hoshit-!” _ Without thinking, you zap away, your subconscious still on high alert from your nightmare. This puts you a solid two feet above the surface of the ocean before gravity kicks in and pulls you beneath the waves. 

The shock of the cold water jolts you fully awake, and you’re able to pull yourself together and teleport back to the living room in one piece. 

Dirk stares at you as you drip seawater all over his floor. “My bad.”

“Dude. Really?” you demand. 

“... I was checking out your face.”

“I’m flattered but you’re a little young for me, hotshot.”

“Gross. I mean the giant frickin’ shiner on your left eye, smartass.”

You pause, before remembering getting slapped to kingdom come by a certain jadeblood girl. Giving Dirk a thumbs-up, you walk to the bathroom to examine your reflection for the second time in three hours. 

It was probably because of the shitty ceiling light that barely does its job that you didn’t get to see the full damage last night. Now, the morning sun shines in brightly through the window, lighting up your lily-white face in all its glory. 

“God  _ damn.” _ You brush your fingers over the handprint-shaped bruise placed solidly over the left half of your face, with the pointer and middle fingertips ending just below the scars on your forehead. Lovely shades of blue, purple, and grey decorate the entire area. How did you not get a concussion from that? 

_ Oh, Bronya, why did it have to end like this?  _

Jane pokes her head in and winces. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” You turn to her and try for a winning smile. “Alternia can be brutal, but hey, I’ve had worse. How’d you sleep?”

“It’s okay if you’re not okay, you know,” she says quietly. “I’m not okay either, because I miss my father. None of us are truly okay, I believe.”

“... That was some deep shit, Janey,” you say, impressed. 

She flips her hair back with a smirk. “I consider myself to be highly versed in the ways of how humans respond to different stressors. When the world looks down on you because you are small and cute, one must learn to be powerful.”

You look up at her. “How tall are you?”

“Five-foot-six! But everybody in my blasted family is tall so I look really short compared to them!” she pouts. 

“Wooowwwww. Five-foot-six.”

“Too much cheek, not enough height.”

“Is it nice being able to reach the top shelves?”

“Yes, but I can also see the top of your head and therefore how greasy your hair has become. Go ask Dirk if you can take a shower.”

You give her a snappy military salute and go find Dirk. The more you keep yourself busy, the more you won’t have to think about what happened last night. Revenge against Strider will have to wait until you’re feeling better, because right now… yeah, Jane was right. You need to learn that it’s okay to not be okay. Maybe part of your revenge will be getting better?

… That’s not a bad idea, actually.

<>

The nasty dark thing inside of you isn’t being a total bitch today, which is an awesome turn of events, so you  _ were _ going to figure how to make the barriers around this universe even stronger so that Strider couldn’t come back. 

_ Were _ being the key word there. 

“Think fast!” You barely have any time to react before Dirk chucks something at you, and you fumble and drop it. It’s a katana, the blade wrapped with towels and tied up in rubber bands. Picking it up, you look back at Dirk like,  _ What the hell,  _ and he smirks. “Wanna know a good part of the reason you feel like shit? You haven’t been looking after yourself, that’s why. Take care of your body, and the mind will follow.”

“Remember what happened last time you tried to teach me how to use this thing?” you ask dryly. 

He huffs. “You’re a little stronger now, it’ll be fine. Also, we’ll use wrapped blades.”

“Bet.” 

“Fuck yeah. Everybody up to the roof!”

Everybody follows him up to the roof, and you enjoy the hell out of the sunshine and ocean breeze. All around you, the sea stretches out to the horizon, still and as blue as sapphires. It’s bright as all shit, though, because your eyes are so used to Alternian nights. 

Dirk must have noticed you squinting, as well as the others, because he trudges over to one of the shelves he has near the AC unit and pulls several pairs of sunglasses out of it, all of them the pointy anime-looking ones. Nice. “It’s fine not to wear them inside because the windows are tinted, but out here the sun reflecting off the water can blind you if you look for too long.”

“Lovely,” Jane comments. 

“So you’re telling me you  _ don’t _ wear them for whatever nonsense fuckery you call your aesthetic?” Jake scoffs, grinning as he twirls his own blade. “My my, Strider, perhaps you do have one more brain cell than originally anticipated.”

Dirk starts swinging his own katana around, sizing Jake up. “If you wanna fuck me so bad, English, all you had to do was ask.”

“Boys? Can you be horny when it’s not one-hundred degrees outside?” you beg. 

They both jerk back from each other like they had completely forgotten you and the girls were even there. 

“Nobody is horny for a single soul, I assure you,” Jake huffs. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Jane and Roxy give each other matching looks of  _ Dear God just let us die.  _

“Micah. Fighting stance,” Dirk orders. 

You loosen your knees and raise your blade. 

“Decent. Keep the sword higher and breathe slow and deep. Getting as much oxygen into your bloodstream as you can before a fight will help a fuckton,” he lectures, dropping into a stalk and somehow appearing right in front of you in the blink of an eye. “Swing!”

You swing, shockwaves racing up both your arms as Dirk meets the blow effortlessly. Leaping to the side to put some space in between you two, you try and smack the flat of the blade against his ribs, but he’s able to block it by twisting the handles together and knocking the katana clean out of your hands. 

“Your agility is good, but we need to work on your upper body strength. See how they went for my non-dominant side?” he asks Jane. “Too predictable. Always wait until your opponent is tired before bringing out the easy shit.”

“They should have gone for your dominant side?” Jane asks, confused. 

“In this instance, yep. Micah should have ducked and went for my right pectoral.”

You groan. “Man, this stuff is complicated.”

“For beginners it is. Try again.” 

“Beat his ass!” Roxy cheers. 

A spark of inspiration gives you an idea. When Dirk comes at you again, you teleport to his right side and hit the butt of the handle against his elbow. At the same time, you lock your leg around his knee and kick it out from underneath him. 

He actually stumbles. You whoop in celebration and do a little dance, turning to the others. “Yooooo, did you guys see-?”

The sky and concrete change places, and then you’re flat on your back with Dirk’s sneaker on your chest.

He peers down at you. “Gotta say, I respect the hustle. But no more powers during strifes until you get a six pack.”

“Wha-- a  _ six pack? _ Fuckin’ party pooper.” You cough, winded. 

“Damn straight. Again!”

You and Dirk spar until you’ve got a few more moves down-- just a few basic blocks and parries, and then he pairs up with Jane and Roxy with Jake while you take five. He’s a mean ass teacher, for sure, especially when he kicks Jane in the shins hard enough to make her shriek. 

Things get more interesting when Dirk and Jake face off. You know Jake learned how to swordfight from Dirk’s robot buddy that he sent over (you still think that whole situation is problematic AF, but whatever), but you haven’t really seen what he can do yet. 

As it turns out, a lot. 

You have to zap out of the way as Dirk and Jake all but try to kill each other as the rags wrapped around their blades get shredded to pieces. It’s a total free-for-all as they battle their way all over the roof, with one of them getting the upper hand every now and again and the other pulling some trick that almost puts them in the winning lane. Dirk is fast and strong, but you think Jake has the pain tolerance of ten thousand Spartan warriors. He’ll get straight up shredded from thigh to kneecap and not even bat an eye. 

Dirk grunts as Jake roundhouses him in the knee hard enough for him to stagger, retaliating with a punch to the jaw with the hilt of his katana. 

Jake spits out red. “Bloody hell! Uncle!”

“My bad,” Dirk wheezes, bending double to clutch his knee. “To be fair, I think you broke something here.”

“Shall I kiss it better?”

“You two are crazy,” Roxy sighs. Then, she abruptly sits down, bringing a hand to her forehead. 

You teleport over to her without thinking as Jane feels her cheek. Roxy’s reddened face tells you what you need to know before you check her temperature as well. 

“Her fever’s back,” you call over to the boys.  _ Crap, fuck, shit, not again! _

Dirk swears and limps over, muttering to Hal through his shades, and you teleport everybody back downstairs so you can help Jane lay Roxy down on the couch. 

“‘M fine,” she groans, swatting at you as you tie her hair back so it doesn’t stick to her face. “Just need water. Ow.”

“Why does this keep happening,” Jane whimpers. 

Jake runs back from the kitchen with a glass of cold water, helping Roxy sit up so she can drink. “Perhaps there is some way that her medicine could be compressed into tablet form? So she doesn’t have to be so dependent on the IV, that is.”

**“Uh, Dirk?”**

“Not now, Hal. Dude, does this look like CVS Pharmacy?” Dirk snaps. 

“What the bloody hell is a CVS Pharmacy--”

“Hold her wrist so I can put the needle in,” Jane mutters, and you do as she says while she guides the IV into her forearm with a surprisingly steady hand. 

“Hal, what do you think about creating some fuckin, uhhh, medicine tablets?” Dirk asks. 

**“I can do that. But… aw, shit there’s something you should know about the weather; I just picked it up on my scanner.”**

“Bro, I don’t care about the weather. Roxy’s sick.”

**“You should. Because this tower can only stand up to wind gusts of one-hundred and fifty MPH or less, and…”**

You turn to Dirk, staring at the AI shades in his hands. “And?”

**“We’ve got a category seven hurricane headed right at us.”**

There’s a moment of silence

“... I’m sorry, a friggin’ what,” you say. 

“Hurricanes only go up to category  _ five,” _ Jane corrects Hal. 

**“Maybe in your time period they do, sweet cheeks, but this is several hundred years in the future after everything’s been royally fucked by an alien Empress who doesn’t give a shit about the planets she conquers. Accelerated climate change is a real bitch, huh?”**

Jake sits down. “I’m going to be sick.”

Dirk looks a lot paler than usual, but he regains his composure quickly enough. “When’s it gonna hit us?”

**“We’ve got fifty-three hours, twenty-seven minutes, and two seconds. The thing’s coming at us at three-hundred and six MPH.”**

The five of you stare at each other, and this time Roxy is the first to speak. 

“... Fuck,” she says. 

:::

“You’re joking.”

Lynera scrambles to her feet, still wide-eyed and bristling. “I’m really not! I swear!”

You glance over to Lanque, and he meets your eyes with one raised brow, clearly on the same train of thought as you. He looks tired as all fuck. Seeing him with a single hair out of place would normally be enough cause for the entire cloister to wonder if he was sick or something. 

Your name is Daraya Jonjet, and you’re just a teenager who somehow ended up a leader of a civil war. 

“Okay, so even if you’re not a spy for Bronya, which you totally are--”

“I’m not a spy!”

“-- what makes you think you’re cut out for fighting in a rebellion?” you sneer. “What makes you think that we even  _ want _ you there?”

Lynera whips out a knife out of seemingly nowhere and points it at you. “Bitch, I’ve been throwing these things around since I joined the cloister! Just because I don’t look like I can fight doesn’t mean I can’t!”

“One time I smoked a blunt in the communal washrooms and you walked in and started crying,” Lanque snorts. 

“You know I  _ hate _ it! When you break the rules  _ and _ stink up the whole damn cave!” Lynera shrieks, pointing the knife to him. “And furthermore-!”

“Oh my fucking gog, just go home already,” you growl, turning on your heel to march down the mountain path. “Wash the blood off Bronya’s claws.”

“Bronya and I are… not on speaking terms at the moment. Probably because I… well…”

You stop dead in your tracks. 

Slowly, you and Lanque turn back to her. Skalbi’s shaking in her shoes. 

“Lynera? What did you do?” Lanque whispers. 

Lynera looks like she’s on the verge of a mental breakdown. “I-I…  _ I yelled at her! _ Okay? I yelled at her and I called her a nasty bitch who doesn’t deserve to be anybody’s leader right now. Because she-- she really fucked up! Micah could have lost their eye!”

_ Holy fucking hell. This really is the end of the world as we know it.  _

Nobody speaks for a hot minute, and Lynera’s hyperventilating with her knife still clutched firmly in her right hand, and you’re pretty sure if the entire fucking mountain exploded you wouldn’t notice. 

“You yelled at Bronya,” Lanque says. 

“Yeah.”

_ “You yelled at Bronya.” _

“Yes!”

Lanque takes a deep breath, and then bends over as he absolutely hollers with laughter. 

“It’s not funny!” she wails. 

“Yes it is! Lynera you fucking madtroll,” you breathe. “Wait, wait, what was the look on her face when you called her a nasty bitch? You gotta tell us everything, dude, our lives depend on it!”

“It was horrible, okay?”

You start dancing around. “Yesssssss!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

She makes some garbled whimper and sinks to her knees. 

Still laughing hard enough that there’s dismay fluid in his eyes, Lanque grabs her by the arm and drags her to her feet. “Come on, harpy. We’re bringing you to Dammek and Xefros. They’ll decide what to do with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of 2020! What are y'alls new year resolutions? 
> 
> Also something I've been meaning to address: in Hiveswap Act 2 it's implied that Daraya is around Bronya, Lynera, and Lanque's age, but in Friendsim I thought she was like 13-14 in humans years so yeah. In Riverbound she's 15 in human years. Just a teenage hooligan and the embodiment of Gen Z in troll form. Bronya is 20, Lynera is 19, Wanshi is 11, and Lanque is 21.


	44. Of Regrets, Consuming, and Raised Voices

The first time you had to cull a wiggler was the worst. You didn’t even have to do any of the work, just press a button to summon the nearest euthanasia drone, and he was taken from you without question. He had been born with an exceptionally thin exoskeleton, causing it to crack painfully if he moved too much. By the time he was gone your hands were covered in golden blood from his squirming. Or was he a bronze? You can’t remember. You do remember washing your hands until they bled for nights afterward. 

That particular memory plays on repeat inside your pan as you frantically scrape out bright red from underneath your claws, your stomach churning from the copper smell that mingles with the harsh yellow sour-fruit scent of the soap. 

No, take deep breaths. A proper jadeblood is not phased by anything. She is 

1) Calm 

2) Collected 

3) Prepared 

4) Dedicated 

5) Nurturing

You stare at yourself in the mirror. The shadow-eyed girl who is the leader of a cloister stares back at you, still scratching at her hands, hands that willingly struck a friend hard enough to make them bleed. 

Your name is Bronya Ursama, and you feel like a monster. 

The mediculler bay that you and the girls set up by the entrance to the caverns will be needing your assistance. There’s also grubs to attend to, shifts to schedule, dinner to prepare. You have to keep going. As long as you keep going, you won’t have to think about the sensation of too-soft skin tearing beneath your claws, or the tiniest whimper that shocked you back to your senses afterwards, or the absolute _fury_ in Lanque and Daraya and Wanshi’s eyes when they realized what you did. Lanque held the girls back from attacking you (a fight that you would have lost) but the absolute loathing and disgust in his gaze burned into you like hellfire. It still does. 

You dry your hands off and turn to leave your washroom, except your way out is blocked by your unofficial second-in-command. 

“Lynera,” you sigh, relieved. “Thank you for your patience. We… we can deal with this later. Right now we need to--”

“How dare you.”

Your pan goes completely blank. “What?”

“How. Dare. You!” She seethes, shoulders trembling as her fists tighten. White fangs glint in the overhead light, sharp as the knives she wields. “You-You _know_ Micah’s fragile! Even if what they said made you angry it’s not okay! All they were trying to do was make sure nobody got hurt and _you hurt them!”_

“They… lied to me,” is all you can tell her. She’s yelling at you? Lynera, who’s been by your side for sweeps--

“So fucking what?” she cries. “I’m just-- I can’t believe-! That the girl I’ve followed blindly for so long would hit somebody like that! Especially _them!”_

The anger finally resurfaces, and with it the grief and weariness. “I made a mistake, one that I’ll regret for a long, long time. But you can’t forget that everything I do is in the best interest of this family! What Daraya and Lanque are doing isn’t just dangerous, it could get us _killed_ if one of them is captured and their identity is traced back to us as a member of our cloister!”

Lynera blinks back tears. “Family? Bronya, this isn’t a family. None of us even like each other!”

“That’s not true!” _No, no, don’t say that, please no._

“Don’t be stupid! Daraya would rather lock herself in her block all night than spend time with you or me when we’re off shift. Aviann and Natiri are scared of me, and I think Pangur is depressed, and Virana talks to herself all the time--”

“Stop.”

“-- and Wanshi’s becoming a teenager and sneaking around all the time, but she’s still doing well in schoolfeeding and not leaving the caverns so I have no reason to punish her for running off--”

“Lynera-!”

“-- and don’t even get me started on Lanque! He’s… he’s _Lanque!”_

“As jadebloods, we must--”

“And you!” she spits, jabbing a finger into your chest. “You… maybe he was right about one thing. You are a horrible, nasty _bitch!”_

She turns and flies out of the washroom without another word. The door to your block slams shut not a second later. 

You stand there, alone, and start to cry. 

:::

Everything starts moving pretty quickly after Hal makes his surprise announcement. 

Dirk starts barking out orders, telling Jane to tie down the AC unit on the roof and Jake to start boarding up the windows. Roxy tries to stand up to help, and you just about have to sit on her to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere. Hal runs some calculations to figure out how much of the tower would survive the hurricane… or if there would even be anything left. 

**“Uh… yeah,”** he says after a few minutes. **“We’re pretty much fucked. Once the storm hits this popsicle stand has got two minutes, maybe three. Maybe.”**

Roxy looks up at you with bleary eyes. “Wha’ are we gonna do? We gotta get to your universe ‘cause that Aradia lady said so.”

“We’ll…” You mentally run through the current list of options. “We’ll, uh. So, we’ve got Alternia, the alien hell planet, and…” You almost say Jade’s island, but then you meet Dirk’s gaze and freeze. 

Dave is there. Dave, who is still recovering from getting beaten half to death by a man who wears your friend’s face. Showing up with Dirk would _not_ be a good idea. 

It’s only then you realize that if Ultimate Dirk is your biological father, then that makes Dave… your half-brother. And Rose is your half-sister. Holy fucking shit. 

_I have siblings._

“Micah? You good?” Dirk asks. “You just went really pale. Well, paler. When you stand in direct sunlight you literally glow.”

_Stop being a self-absorbed piece of shit._ “Uh-yeah, ah, I’m good. We’re just kind of in a pickle right now and, uh, just trying to figure out where the fuck I’m supposed to take you guys.”

“We can go to Jade’s abode! My granddaughter!” Jake cheers from the hallway. 

“No!” you yelp. 

Everybody turns to you with an expression of _what the hell,_ and you wince. “Aw, shit. Sorry, guys, but… yeah, that’s not gonna work right now.”

“Why not?” Jake questions, the smile falling from his face. 

“I--” You look back to Dirk, trying to telepathically convey to him that he needs to have a really smart idea like, yesterday. 

“Time shit?” he asks. 

“Yes!” you agree. “Yeah, time is really weird around there and I can’t…”

_God, Micah, you’re such a fucking loser. What is this, Doctor Who?_

“Oh, okay. Drat,” Jake mutters. 

“Sorry, kid. The universe is a tricky bitch and I… I’m just trying my best,” you tell him. At least that part was honest. “You know what? I’ll take you guys to Rose’s house for now. Her mom won’t be home for a while and even when she does come home she’ll…”

You trail off as you look down at Roxy, who is now sound asleep, still clutching your hand to her chest. “She’s not as strong as the Roxy we know when it comes to staying sober. I doubt she’ll be a problem in any way.”

“She’s the beta version of Roxy,” Dirk realizes. 

“Yeah.”

“And what you’re saying is that Rose’s mother is not nearly as determined to… overcome her addiction,” Jane adds, wringing her hands. 

Jake gives her a chilly look. “Oh, so now you’re on Roxy’s side? How convenient. How kind.”

“What?” you ask, taken aback by Jake’s sudden change in mood. 

“Nothing. It’s just interesting how Jane here, usually so judgemental concerning Roxy’s alcoholism, is now one-hundred percent supportive,” Jake scoffs. 

**“Oof. Get her ass,”** Hal snickers. 

You look to Jane, who looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “I didn’t mean it! Truly! I was just scared because we almost lost her!”

“Maybe you had the privilege of being around adults who could teach you better, but Roxy sure didn’t! Nor did Dirk or I, and now look at us,” Jake snaps. “You can act sorry all you like, _madam,_ but until you muster up the courage to actually apologize you can go and suck eggs.”

Dirk groans. “Guys, can we fight after we figure out how we’re going to escape Hurricane Just-Fuck-Me-Right-Up?”

“I think what might be the problem here for Jane is that this place doesn’t have a lot of room to have a private conversation with Roxy,” you interrupt, getting to your feet and shooing Jane and Jake apart. Mutie darts by your feet and trots down the hallway to Dirk's room like even he doesn't want to be involved. “Look, I might have not been here for what went down, but I can tell that this whole mess has been a big stressor for all of you. As for Jane, it was a learning experience, right?”

“Yes!” she says desperately. 

Jake doesn’t say anything, which doesn’t give you much hope knowing how much that dude likes to talk. He doesn’t try to antagonize Jane anymore, though, so at least there’s that. When the hell did you even become a parent to these messy fuckers, anyways? You wonder if this is how Bronya feels like trying to keep the cloister in order, and then you remember that jadebloods in general are even more unhinged than human teenagers. 

“We can deal with this later. Is it decided that we’ll see if this Rose girl will let us hang at her place for a bit?” Dirk demands. 

There’s a chorus of muttered agreements. 

“Can we stay until the storm rolls in? I wanna see this shit,” you pipe up, trying to lighten the mood. “I mean, who here has seen a frickin’ category seven hurricane before?”

“Nobody has, actually. They tend not to leave survivors,” Dirk states, but he flops down on the couch next to Roxy and turns on the TV. “We leave in two days, assholes. Be ready by then or prepare to get turbo-fucked by Mother Nature herself.”

Everybody disperses after that. You see Jane slip out the door to head back up to the roof, so you grab a couple of apples and follow her. 

There’s no sign of the oncoming storm just yet, but somehow the sea looks even stiller than usual, reflecting the clouds above almost perfectly. Gulls swirl around in the updraft created by the sun warming the concrete. Is there land nearby? There has to be, if there’s birds here. Hopefully they’ll leave before the hurricane arrives. 

Jane’s sitting on the edge of the roof, staring out at the horizon as the wind whips her dark hair around. You sit down next to her and hand her the apple. She accepts it with a quiet “Thank you” before taking a bite. 

Both of your apples are gone before you say anything. “I bet you’re wondering why she just couldn’t stop herself.”

“... Sometimes, yes.”

“Well, I don’t know a whole lot about addiction, but I know enough about being mentally ill in general to know that it literally rewrites how your brain works. It’s not just a way of thinking. It’s… it’s just your body trying to protect itself,” you say. 

She looks up at you. “Like… like when I bake so I’m not lonely?” 

“Kind of like that, yeah. By the way, did you bring your crazy talking spatula with you?” you ask her warily. “The scary one?”

“It’s in my backpack. I haven’t used it in months, because I know it’s from the Condense, but… I don’t know how to get rid of the darn thing,” she mumbles sadly. “Throwing it in the bin just doesn’t seem right, you know?”

“Maybe when Roxy finally heals you can throw it away together,” you suggest. 

Jane perks up. “Oh, very symbolic! Because she’s throwing away her drinking problem and I’m throwing away my heiress problem!”

You can’t help but laugh. “That’s a nice way to think of it. I mean, I just put that out there because I hate that thing and it could be a good way to show Roxy you understand she’s going through something really hard, but if you want to be poetic…”

“I’m an artist! Of course I want to be poetic!” Jane declares, jumping to her feet. “Come on, we’re going to make supper for everyone.”

“Ooh, what are we making?”

“Pasta.”

_“Yesssssss.”_

<>

That night, your dreams are blessedly free from Ultimate Dirk, but you find yourself amongst the ruins of a scorched planet that had definitely been Earth at some point. Outside the building you’re in, the heavens are almost completely dominated by a massive, blazing red motherfucker that no sane person would call a sun. The window you’re looking out is tinted, but it’s still bright as all hell. And _hot._ Wincing, you shuffle away from the window and almost trip over something that rattles noisily in silence of the hallway. Looking down, you see a… chain?

Following the length as far as it will go-- only about six feet, you find yourself staring down at a metal cuff splattered with green blood. 

Oh, God. 

“Calliope!” you shout, taking off down the hallway at top speed. The blood trail turns the corner, and you follow it down a flight of stairs where it ends at the emergency exit door. 

You don’t get the chance to open it before a bone-shaking clap of the loudest noise you have ever heard has you flying off the couch like you just went god tier. 

Roxy’s violet eyes are huge in the darkness when you meet them. Looking around, you see everybody staring at each other before another roll of thunder from the storm outside makes the windows shake dangerously. You jump to your feet, wondering what in the name of all that is holy is going on. There’s no way it can be--

The windows explode. Jane screams and shoves Jake out of the way as glass shards scatter all over the carpet. Wind and rain blast the room with a ferocity you didn’t think was possible, even for a hurricane. With a sickening _pop,_ your eardrums nearly blow under the pressure. 

“Surely we had one more day?” Jake cries. 

“Hal! What the fuck!” Dirk yells over the chaos, tearing out of the living room to open his laptop. It’s dead. He tries flipping the lights on, but nothing happens. “Oh, that’s so messed up. The storm wiped out the power and then my laptop fucking died because Hal absolutely _fries_ the battery--”

**_BOOM._ **

Jane shrieks and claps her hands over her ears, but Roxy doesn’t seem to care about anything that’s going on. “You said Calliope’s name in your sleep.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I had a dream,” you say, remembering. “Oh, man.”

“Is she alive?”

“I-I don’t know--”

“Where is she? Micah, where is she?!”

“I don’t know!”

“Everybody get your shit, we gotta go.” Dirk slams his laptop shut and shoves it into his backpack while Jake and Jane run off to get dressed. “Roxy, what’s going on?”

“My friend, Calliope, I haven’t heard from her in months and I don’t know if she’s dead and all I know is that her brother is fucking insane and if anything’s happened to her I’ll kill everybody in this tower and then myself!” Roxy wails, pushing herself to her feet. 

You try to recall what happened to her when you read the fucking Homestuck comic when you were trapped in Doc Scratch’s mansion. Caliborn, Calliope’s aforementioned insane brother… had gotten her killed so he could take control of their body, right? But the blood you saw was _green._ Somehow… somehow she must have won this time. 

But how?

“She’s alive,” you tell Roxy. “You have to trust me on this. We’re going to get out of here, go to my universe, and then I’ll go get her. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“No, go get her now!” she begs. 

“I am not leaving you; that is not up for debate! Get ready to go, now!”

She doesn’t move. 

_“Now,_ Roxy! _Do not make me repeat myself!”_ you roar. 

Stunned, Roxy staggers away from you, and you see Dirk’s jaw drop as she runs to get her bag and Mutie from his bedroom. 

You barely have the time to grab your own backpack before the piercing shriek of rusty metal beams let you know the tower just gave way. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all didn't think I forgot about Calliope, did you? ;)


	45. Of Rescues, Dearly Needed, and Cats, Adorable

In an epic display of badassery and control over your powers, you stop thinking with your human brain, open up your eyes (not the ones in your skull) wide enough to see everything in the tower all at once, and in quick succession grab Dirk, Roxy, Jake, and Jane, exactly in that order. Making sure Roxy had a good grip on a now-traumatized Mutie, you tear a hole in the barrier between this universe and yours and yeet everybody through. You jump in after them and seal the opening you made, giving it a couple good kicks to make sure it holds before falling out the other side. 

Unfortunately, your moment of glory ends abruptly when you eat shit. 

_“Mmphr-_ fuckit!” You spit out the grass that somehow made its way into your mouth and rub your sore nose. It’s not broken, but there’s definitely gonna be a new bruise to add to your already impressive collection on your face. Looking around to make sure everybody is present-- one, two, three, four kids and one cat, you let Dirk pull you to your feet while you smack the dirt off your ass. “Everybody okay?”

“What the hell was that?” Dirk whispers. 

“I know, right? Fuck climate change, man--”

“No, what the hell was with the Lovecraftian lightshow back there? One minute you’re normal and then the next there’s like a thousand glowing eyes all around you and then you just disappeared and now we’re here.” He’s trying very hard to keep his cool, but since his shades were knocked off upon arrival you can see the way panic is starting to set in. His face looks weirdly bare without them. 

“Ah, has Dirk gone mad?” Jake whispers.

Roxy’s too busy handling her cat to answer, stroking his head and rocking him back and forth. “Mutie, calm down, it’s okay baby boy. No more storms, I promise.”

Mutie trembles in her arms and pukes, thankfully hitting the lawn instead of his owner. Jane is sprawled out on her back, staring up at the sky while she does breathing exercises, glasses askew on her round, pretty face. 

“Uhhh… what the…” Is all you can say, because this sort of thing has never happened before. First you did the thing with the atoms back at the prison, and now glowing eyes? You… you used them to see the entire tower. You saw where everyone was all at once so you could get them as quickly as possible and get out. 

Dirk lets go of you and backs away, for once looking like the overwhelmed sixteen-year-old he really is. Crap. 

Pushing away the urge to chase after him so you can give him a hug, you take a deep breath. “I’m going to be completely honest with you, dude: there’s a lot about my abilities that I still don’t know. But we can figure that stuff out later, okay? Right now--”

“Micah!”  
  


You turn to see Rose bounding down the hill, and for the first time you realize you landed in her backyard. “Rose! Hey, kid, so funny story…”

She slows to a halt in front of you and raises a hand to cut you off. “I know. That friend of yours that passed away appeared to me in a dream and told me to expect guests, one of whom would be an alternate version of my mother. Boldir, was it?”

_Thank the fucking heavens for Boldir._ “I owe that girl my life. How is she?”

“Busy. There are many … afoot,” Rose says slowly, her eyes wandering over and fixating on an incredulous Roxy. “And you… hello.”

“Hi,” Roxy breathes. 

“Look, so I know this is a huge dick move, but one of Roxy’s friends is in a lot of danger right now and I have to go save her. I’ll be back within the hour. Dirk, keep everybody out of trouble,” you order. 

Dirk salutes, back in unaffected coolkid mode again. 

Rose’s brows crease. “Dirk? As in-?”

You shoot her a look that says _later,_ hoping that she’ll listen and keep her mouth shut about Dave’s Bro, and zap off to a dead Earth underneath a red giant sun…

And regret it immediately. 

“Holy _fuck,”_ you wheeze, and regret that too when you inhale a lungful of dusty air so hot your lungs burn. You can feel the heat scorching your skin, painful enough for you to cover your head and neck with your arms as you stumble over to the nearest shaded area. 

Looking out over the wasteland is just as awful; your eyes are already sensitive from spending so much time on Alternia. God, you miss Alternia. This place is… this place was once your home planet, or at least another version of it. It hurts, knowing that this was once a world full of people with families and memories and history. Out in the distance, you make out the remains of a McDonald’s, the once-proud Golden Arches nearly unrecognizable from decay. One of the greatest symbols of American culture, reduced to ash. 

Blinking rapidly to get the dust out of your eyes, you wonder why you haven’t been cooked to a fine crisp yet, or covered in tumors from the insane amount of radiation the sun has to be putting out. It doesn’t hurt any more than when you had to briefly go out during the Alternian daytime when that rebel girl brought you to Dammek and Xefros’s base. 

Whatever, you’ll deal with that later. Right now you need to find Calliope. 

If she’s still alive, that is. 

_Focus._ You ask the universe to bring you to her and teleport away. 

This time you end up inside what you think used to be a house, thankfully built with small windows. It’s dark, alleviating some of the pain that’s started to build up in your head, but somehow it’s even hotter here than it is outside. 

“Calliope?” you hiss, your voice swallowed up by the suffocating heat. “Psst! Calliope!”

You don’t expect a response, and yet you get one in the form of a growl so deep and powerful you freeze on the spot. 

In the back of your human brain, the now very familiar instinct of a prey animal in the presence of a predator screams to life, sending your heart into overdrive and telling every muscle in your shrimpy underweight body to get ready to _run._

You don’t think about teleporting. You just turn on your heels and bolt. 

Two seconds. That’s how long you last before something hard and heavy slams down onto your shoulders, knocking you to the ground hard enough to wind you. Somebody squeals like a toddler (definitely not you) as your attacker pins you to the ground. 

It’s only then that your eyes finally adjust to the dark. 

A gaunt, skull-like face stares down at you as dagger-sharp claws dig into your shoulder, green eyes round and shocked. Fangs as long as your pinkie finger protrude from the bony upper jaw. Oh, wow. That’s a hell of a jaw. You could crush a dude’s skull with that jaw. 

You turn your head to the side to cough. “Augh-- hey, Calliope.”

“Oh, bloody hell!” Calliope’s off you in a flash, pulling you to your feet and making some kind of distressed whining noise in the back of her throat. “Please, forgive me. I was dead asleep when I heard you call for me and I thought… I thought you were someone else.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I lived with trolls for like, ever,” you grunt, dusting yourself off. You take a look at her; she doesn’t seem to be injured but she’s thin, exhausted, and filthy. Cherubs are supposed to look kind of bony, but Calliope doesn’t look healthy at all.“I’m Micah, by the way. Your brother… he’s dead?”

Calliope raises her head, proud, but you can see the faintest glint of sorrow in her gaze. “He is. A god tiered version of me-- that is, from another universe-- came to my aid just in time, as well as some dark-haired human girl. She informed me that one of Roxy’s friends would come save me, but I must admit I was beginning to lose hope.”

A whirlwind of thoughts jumbles around inside your consciousness. _Has this kid been alone? Who’s the dark-haired human girl?_ “How long has it been? You look… damn, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but you look like the entire planet beat your ass!”

“Five of your human weeks. Roxy taught me all about your measurements of time, you see.”

“You haven’t eaten or drank anything for five weeks.”

“I have not. But my species is very hardy.”

You want to cry for how much this poor girl has suffered. “When we get back I’ll make you the biggest fucking sandwhich in both human and cherub history.”

“What is a… sandwich?” she asks, confused. 

“Allow me to show you.” You offer her your hand, which she eagerly reaches for, only to snatch it away at the last second, shuffling away like a beaten dog. 

“I-I… I can’t possibly just introduce myself like this,” she whispers. 

“Huh?”

“You must be honest with me. From a human standpoint, I look like a monster.”

“Oh,” you say, a little dumbfounded. Right. You had totally forgotten about the way she feels about her appearance. “Calliope, I know we literally just met, but when I say that you’ll be safe on Earth with Roxy and our friends I _am_ telling the truth. Maybe they’ll be surprised, because hello, you’re an alien, but nobody will purposefully treat you differently because of how you look. They’re better than that.”

She chitters nervously. “You’re certain?”

“I am. We’ve all been through enough shit to not care about if a bitch is green or not.”

For the first time, she cracks a smile. It’s kind of terrifying with those huge-ass fangs, but hey, you survived hanging out with Chahut and all her spooky mannerisms. 

This time, when you offer her your hand, she takes it, and you bring her home. 

You must be more strung out than you thought, because when you try and do a smooth transition from post-apocalyptic Earth to Rose’s back porch you end up five feet in the air in her living room. 

“Ohcrap-!”

Calliope smacks into the carpet with a thud, and you land on her back and flop down next to her, winded. Wow. That’s like, the third time in one hour that you’ve wiped out. If Nihkee was here she’d be raising hell about your clumsiness and demanding that you drop and give her thirty. 

An unexpected surge of shame hits you when you try and get up but can’t. 

“Micah? Are you alright?” Calliope rolls you over, brows creased fearfully. 

“Yeah,” you say, even though your vision is starting to go fuzzy. Dammit, that thing you pulled earlier with your powers probably used up all of your energy, didn’t it?

She hauls you up so that you’re sitting. “Where are… what is this place?”

A stampede of footsteps more or less answers that question, followed by several shocked yelps. Calliope’s grip tightens like she isn’t sure whether to hide or try to protect you. 

_Uh-oh._ You manage to roll your head over to see the alpha kids and Rose, all of them sporting varying expressions that range from _what the fuck is that_ to _oh God we’re gonna die._

Dirk shoves everybody else behind him, ready for a fight, but by some miracle you find the strength to push yourself to your feet and hold out your hands. “Hold it! Everybody, meet Calliope. Calliope, these are five out of eight of my rat bastard kids.”

“What the--” Roxy squirms past a reluctant Dirk and stares at the girl beside you. “Calliope! That you, dude?”

Calliope lights up like it’s Christmas day, the pure joy on her face unmarred by her fearsome looks. _“Roxy!”_

“Bro, you’re a whole ass alien--” is all Dirk gets to say before Roxy gets swooped up by Calliope, the pair clinging to each other like it’s the end of the world. 

“Well, it’s not just Dirk that’s gone mad. It’s the entire bleeding universe!” Jake exclaims. 

“Can’t argue with you there, buddy,” you agree, and then the floor sways underneath you. Strong, soft hands catch you and drag you over to the couch. Rose’s sharp voice comes in from a million miles away. Your whole body feels hot, cold, hot, cold, cold, cold. 

For what feels like hours you just… lay there. It was probably no more than ten minutes, really, but when you come to there’s a slice of orange being shoved at your face. 

“Eat,” Rose orders. 

“Hnng.”

“Eat the orange.”

_“Hnnrg.”_

Nonetheless, you persist and eat the damn orange. It’s a few minutes before you feel well enough to sit up, and when the world stops playing rollercoaster with your sense of balance you drink a cup of water she brings you. Once you eat the rest of the orange slices you manage to get to your feet and follow her to the bathroom. She has you step up on something, but the floors don’t feel uneven beneath your feet. 

When she brings you back to the couch everybody is gathered around the living room, Roxy and Calliope huddled together on the adjacent sofa while Jane commandeers the loveseat, hands folded elegantly in her lap. A black tail peeking out from underneath Roxy’s feet gives you the idea that Mutie is still not happy about the whole universe-jumping adventure. Dirk is leaning against the wall, shades fixed firmly across the bridge of his nose once more. Still, you can tell he’s keeping an eye on Calliope. 

“Okay, okay, sorry about that, folks. Flinging myself and four other people and a cat across a whole universe must have unaligned my chakras or some shit,” you sigh. 

“Or it’s the fact you weigh _eighty pounds,”_ Rose hisses. 

Jane spits out the tea she’s been nursing. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, seventy-nine-point-six, but yes. The fact that you aren’t dead or dying amazes me. Mo-- Roxy, you’re going through alcohol withdrawal, correct?”

“Yeah. But I should be in the clear now! Just sayin’,” Roxy adds, puffing out her chest. 

“You still have a fever,” Dirk reminders her sternly. 

“I feel fine--”

“And… Calliope, ah… I’m not sure how we’ll be able to help you recover given your alien anatomy, but we will do the best we can,” Rose finishes, clasping her hands together. If she’s shaken by the presence of somebody so incredibly _not human_ in her house, she’s hiding it well, or at least suppressing it. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, looking a little overwhelmed from being around so many people for the first time in her life, not to mention being around people who aren’t abusing or trying to kill her. Reading _Homestuck_ and wanting to throttle Caliborn’s nasty green ass every time he showed up had been a common occurrence in Scratch’s mansion, but now that you’re seeing the side effects of having to live with him you despise him even more. 

Yes, you just met Calliope, but if anything ever happens to this kid you’ll kill everybody in the multiverse and then yourself. 

Aaannnddd nobody’s talking anymore. Wow, this is kind of awkward.

_Uh…_ “So… Rose? Do you know when your Mom’s gonna be back? ‘Cause I’d rather not surprise her with five older teenagers and an alien.”

“This weekend, I believe. I only got back from vacation yesterday,” she says, her piercing gaze locking on to you. The way she says _vacation_ tells you that what she really means is _Jade’s island,_ where Dave is still recovering. Bec must have brought her back. Her skin is several shades darker than before from all that time in the Pacific sunshine, and despite everything she seems to be in a fairly good mood. “But really, you guys can stay for as long as you need to. It’s not often I get to have company.”

Rose keeps looking over at Roxy, something in the way she holds herself lingering between wariness and joy. Maybe it’ll be good for both of them to have a version of a loved one around that didn’t get completely fucked up. Starting anew and all that. A little spark of excitement lights up in your heart when you remember that hey, you have a half-sister and a half-brother that you’re going to get to call your blood family. 

Once you get the balls to tell them, that is. 

“So…” Rose says, standing up to stretch. “What do you guys want for lunch?”

<>

After everybody finishes lunch-- ham-and-cheese sandwiches with apples and chips-- Dirk, Jane, and Jake all run outside to enjoy the woods, as Dirk has straight up never seen a forest before, and Jake hasn’t been in a forest that isn’t actively trying to kill him. You sent Jane along with them to keep them out of trouble, because boys are stupid. Especially the teenage ones. Roxy and Calliope went to the study room so Roxy could show her what Earth literature is like, and so that Calliope could have a break from people. If Roxy collapsed again you trusted Calliope to come get you. 

At first you wanted to go with them, but Rose all but dragged you back to the couch, her signature notebook already in hand. “We need to figure out a plan for you. You are dangerously underweight and seem to have a lot of difficulty eating, correct?”

“Whoa whoa whoa, why aren’t you harassing Roxy? She’s going through _alcohol withdrawal._ Way more interesting than just me needing to eat more,” you chuckle nervously. 

“That is my mother. I’m not telling my mother what to do. Besides, like she said, it does seem that she’s coming out the other side.”

“Rose, I can’t let you try and fix my problems.”

“I’m not going to fix your problems. I am going to _help_ you with your problems. Just a couple of them, though, because you have many, many problems. No offense.”

“... You know what? That’s fair. You can help me with a couple of my problems. But first, you have to tell me how Dave is doing,” you insist. 

Rose grimaces. “Dave is being… difficult. His injuries are healing nicely, but he just can’t seem to bring himself to admit that what happened-- what has been happening to him is wrong. Every time I’ve tried to reach out to him he pulls away. I fear that he’ll get Bec to bring him back to Texas. Granted, Bec would never disobey Jade, but still.”

You give her a look. “You haven’t been pushing him, have you?”

“No!” she huffs, crossing her arms. “He’s just… Dave.”

“Mm. We’ll have to leave that alone with him for now. You’ve made the message clear that he is more than welcome to talk about his history with us whenever he needs. Now, the ball is in his court, and he has the power to decide what he wants,” you decide. 

“Being a pseudo-psychologist is all well and good until you actually have to interact with people that you care about and realize how much life has fucked them over,” she mumbles. 

“Nobody could do more for him than what you did, Rose.”

“You’re the one who saved him.”

“And you’re the one who probably, in one way or the other, is going to be the one that helps him see the light.”

“You think?”

“I do think.”

“I never would have guessed that you think.”

You grin and swat at her head. Maybe you won’t have the courage to tell Rose and Dave that you are their sibling until later, but until then, you’ll be the best family that anybody has ever had. “Brat. What’s your plan for putting some meat back on these old bones, then?”

“Allow me to show you. According to my extensive research, you need--” 

_“By Skaia’s name will you look at this!”_ Calliope comes flying back into the living room with a huge grin on her face and a book in her hands. She opens it to reveal a picture of a fuzzy white kitten. “This is a book about _cats!_ And Mutie is a cat! Isn’t it glorious?”

Mutie pops his head out from underneath the couch with a meow. 

You laugh. “I think he agrees!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Micah immediately after meeting Calliope: New child? New child.


	46. Of Growth, Unwanted but Necessary

_ Oh, Gog, this was a horrible idea. I should have never left the caverns. I want to go home. Bronya will need help keeping everybody on track, and I left her. She probably hopes I don’t return. I hope she doesn’t want me to return! _

_ Why am I doing this? Why can’t I stop? _

Your pan is racing at a million miles an hour, every thought coming and going quickly enough to make your skull start to ache from stress. On your right, Lanque’s long strides force you to quicken your pace to the point of you getting out of breath, and on your left Daraya blocks any chance at escape. They have you pinned between them and the sensation of being so close to other living bodies has your skin crawling. 

After you finished yelling at Bronya and ran away it had just seemed like the right thing to do! For the first time in sweeps, a kind of terrifying excitement had seized you, carrying you out of the caverns and down the mountainside after Lanque and Daraya. You… well, you didn’t exactly have a  _ plan, _ per say, but you were pretty sure you’d just tag along until something happened. 

What you forgot to take into account was the fact that both of them are very good at making sure they’re not being followed. 

Your name is Lynera Skalbi and you think that your ex-cloistermates are about to try and cull you. They’re going to cull you and leave you in an alley somewhere, and nobody’s even going to care because you’ve only ever had like, two friends, and now you think you’re down to zero. Wherever you stand with poor Micah seems to be up in the air. It’s complicated, really. If you’re still alive tomorrow then maybe you can do something about that. You hope they’re alright, wherever they teleported off to. 

… Where the hell are you going, anyways?

Swallowing hard, you do your best to find the courage to ask-- no,  _ demand _ to know where these two pathetic excuses for jadebloods are taking you, but every time you open your mouth no sound comes out. The three of you have been sneaking your way through the ruins of Thrashthrust for the better part of an hour now, and your bloodpusher is still racing from when a drone passed nearby and you guys had to take cover inside the shell of an old convenience store. Then, Daraya decided to call up Polypa to let her know about the shitshow that went down at the caverns and that she was bringing you into the rebels’ base. You’re really not looking forward to seeing the oliveblood again, should you have the misfortune of running into her. She’s just so… uncivilized. Uncouth. Lacking in proper morals. 

You don’t realize Lanque and Daraya stopped walking until a strong hand pulls you back by your elbow. Jerking away with a hiss, you glare at Lanque as he rolls his eyes, kicks the cover off an entrance to the sewers, and gestures to it like he’s showing off a grand piece of artwork. 

“Start climbing,” he orders.

You stare at the filthy, rust-covered ladder that descends into the dark. “You’re joking.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t my idea. Now climb or I’ll throw you down there myself.”

“I should have called the drones on you both while I still had the chance!”

“Go ahead, bitch, call them.”

Daraya sneers. “She won’t.”

You glare at him and Daraya with as much platonic hatred you can muster before crouching down to grab the ladder, forcing yourself to not recoil at the awful texture, and place one foot on the second-to-last rung to the surface. When you’re fairly certain the whole thing isn’t about to collapse, you do the same with the other foot. Halfway down, you hear the clang of combat boots against metal. You look up to see Daraya clambering down after you. 

“I’d ask you if you like the view, but I’m still a minor,” she calls down. 

“You’re disgusting,” you growl. Relief surges through you when you feel solid ground underneath your feet, and you let go of the ladder to furiously scrub your hands against your skirt. You hate that ladder. 

Daraya leaps off and lands beside you like she’s been climbing through sewers since the night she hatched. She looks like it, too. The backpack, black jeans and hoodie she’s wearing are covered in all sorts of filth, and her makeup is messy enough that she looks like she has bruises all over her face. There’s still a leaf in her spiky hair from the forest. 

“What did you do with your uniform?” you snap. 

“I am in uniform.”

“Don’t be smart with me! Your  _ cloister _ uniform.”

“It’s with my shit at my campsite.”

You shake your head in disbelief. A jadeblood wearing anything other than pajamas or their uniform is… disgraceful, to say the least. Utterly unthinkable. She’s not even wearing her sign, and neither is Lanque!

Wait, did she say  _ campsite?  _

Lanque lands next to Daraya and swipes his palms against his pants. “I hope you’ve been thinking about how you’re going to get the tetrarchs to trust you.”

Oh, shit. What the fuck are you supposed to say to the leaders of the rebellion? “I… won’t you tell them I’m not here to spy or anything?”

Daraya shrugs. “Sure. But you’re still gonna have to prove yourself.”

“W-What will they have me do?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Thank you, Daraya, that’s very helpful.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come.”

“Girls. Always picking fights,” Lanque sniffs, already ambling away into the unknown. “Try and keep up, because I have shit to do tonight.”

“Like what? Write crappy poetry while you try and find somewhere private to jack off?”

“Every word that is born of my pen is a fucking  _ masterpiece,  _ Jonjet. It’s better than your poetry, anyways. All you write about is how depressed you are.”

“My coping mechanisms are pretty damn good compared to how they were a sweep ago--”

“Can somebody  _ please  _ tell me where we’re going?” you plead. 

Daraya gives you the finger. She and Lanque are no longer forcing you to walk between them, as now there is nowhere to run. Even if you do get out of the sewers before they catch you, you’d just get lost in the city and get culled. “The rebel base, idiot.”

“And that is where?”

“Just chill, Skalbi. It’s in a cave system, just like back in the mountain. Maybe if you ask nicely Dammek will let you sniff a rock or something to help you calm down.”

“Hive sweet hive,” Lanque drawls. 

“You both should have been fed to the lusii as wrigglers,” you spit. 

“Well, we weren’t, and now we’re out here disgracing the name of good jadebloods everywhere. Right, Daraya?”

“Hell yeah!”

They high five, and you resist the urge to fling yourself into the water to drown. 

You’re taken deeper and deeper into the sewers, and if you hadn’t grown up in a cave system you would have been hopelessly disoriented by the time the ancient tunnel you’re walking through starts to widen. The light that comes from up ahead grows brighter. 

And then you’re looking out into a giant cavern, populated by none other than the rebellion. 

Despite yourself you can’t help but stop and stare. Trolls of nearly every blood caste sit around fires, strife in the more open areas of the settlement, do their laundry in sanitary containment units. Nearby, their lusii watch protectively. You can’t help but notice that too many of the younger children don’t have a lusus with them, something that breaks your bloodpusher. How many trolls lost their caretakers in the riots? How many would lose theirs in the fight to come? 

Daraya elbows you. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“It… seems to be functional. The wrigglers need more supervision. The ones without their lusii, that is,” you note. 

“Yeah. We can tell Dammek and Xefros that maybe that’s something you could be doing,” she suggests. “Scare the anklebiters into submission.”

“Isn’t that what you and Lanque have been doing?”

Lanque gives you a look. “Why?”

“We’re jadebloods. In case you forgot.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Excuse me?”

He turns to you, crossing his arms as he eyes you with an expression that one would most likely wear while observing a dead animal. The fact that he’s so much bigger than you fills you with rage. “My  _ dearest _ Lynera, listen closely to what I have to say. Everything that you know about life, everything you know about the hemospectrum and our caste’s role in it-- leave it in the caverns where it belongs. Here, lowbloods and highbloods are treated the same--”

“Of course-!”

“-- And jadebloods are no longer just glorified grubsitters. We’re soldiers. In fact, Daraya here is one of the leaders alongside Dammek and Xefros, and you will refer to her as such. You’ll be taking orders from her directly given that you will be allowed to join. Understand?”

_ A soldier. _ The very thought makes you queasy. Jadebloods are not soldiers. Jadebloods protect, care, and nuture. 

But you don’t have much of a choice, do you? Fate led you here-- well, more like dragged you down into the sewer kicking and screaming, but you digress. There’s a better way for Alternia out there, and you’re going to fight for it, for your cloister, for the children you’ve raised, for the children you didn’t even get to hold before they were culled. 

_ And for Bronya.  _

“Very well,” you tell him coolly. 

“Good. Let’s go.”

He and Daraya lead the way down into the settlement, with you close behind. You’re painfully aware of the presence of many people that you do not know, feeling their questioning gazes on you that burn into the back of your head as you pass. The only thing that keeps you from hissing at them is that you are deep underground, cold rock and stalagmites all around you that aren’t too different from those that grow in the caverns. You are in your element. They are not. 

The three of you come to a halt on the outskirts of the settlement, right in front of a tent that is no different than any of the others. 

“Yo, Dammek! Xefros! Wake up, nooksniffers,” Daraya drawls, kicking one of the poles anchoring the tent to the rock. 

“Fuck  _ off, _ Jonjet,” a raspy voice groans from inside. 

“It’s the middle of the night, get your asses up. Lanque and I have the new recruit we want you to meet. She’s a real bitch.”

“I haven’t even done anything!” you protest, only for a bronzeblood guy to come stomping out of the tent, still in his pajamas and looking like he’d rather be unconscious. 

He looks you up and down. “Huh. Polypa told me that Daraya and Lanque were bringing somebody in.”

“And?” you growl. 

“Eh, nothing. I’m Dammek, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Lynera. Lynera Skalbi.”

“Cool. Why do you wanna be here?”

“To be completely honest with you, I really don’t,” you snap. “I do, however, want to help create a society that doesn’t kill wrigglers before they even have a chance to live their lives. I know I’m supposed to be here. Deal with it.”

Dammek raises his brows. “Oh, I like her.”

Lanque and Daraya look at each other. 

“So what can you do?” Dammek asks. 

“I… I can throw knives. I can help with the younger kids here.”

“She’s also good with interrogation,” Daraya adds. “When she first met Micah she tied them up in her study and held them at knifepoint for an hour.”

“That happened  _ one time!” _ you squeal. 

Dammek begins to grin. Behind him, a rustblood boy pokes his head out of the tent with wide eyes, sees Dammek with three jadebloods, and slowly retreats back inside. 

Lanque coughs. “She caught me sneaking back in from a party and almost killed me with a book. She threw it at my head so hard that it hit a stalactite and cracked it.”

“Again, one time-!”

“She pushed me into the seadweller pool when we were younger.”

“Daraya!”

“Well, you did.”

Dammek clears his throat. “Okay, okay. Listen, Skalbi, I think it’s going to be in everybody’s best interest if you’re not on the front lines for now. When we make our next move, that is. In fact, I need you in the caverns to spy.”

You stare at him in disbelief. “I beg your pardon?”

“Spying. Pretty soon the government’s gonna be all over Thrashthrust, wringing every bit of information out of everybody they can get their claws on. That includes the caverns. When Trizza’s bitches come knocking, I want you there to gather intel. If somebody so much as farts I want to hear about it.”

_ Spying? Going behind everybody’s back and… and-! _

“Hold up,” Lanque demands, stepping back to stand beside you. For the first time, you can’t help but feel a surge of relief that he’s here so you can hide behind him. “Dammek, you can’t be serious about giving  _ her _ an assignment. Let me or Daraya go crawl back to Bronya instead.”

Daraya gives him a look like  _ You gotta be kidding me.  _

“I am, in fact, completely fucking serious. No offense, Bombyx, but you can’t kiss ass for the life of you and neither can Daraya, not to mention the both of you don’t exactly meet the criteria for the stereotypical I-just-wanna-take-care-of-babies jade look. Especially you. Y’know, because you’re a whole dude.”

“Thank you, Tetrarch, I didn’t notice.”

Dammek gives him finger guns. “Exactly. We need somebody there who has minimum exposure to the rebellion and who fits in flawlessly. You in, Skalbi?”

“Yes,” you say without thinking, and then mentally kick yourself.

“Fucking awesome. Go home and get everybody ready for whatever comes next. The next couple of wipes are going to be  _ insane,” _ he promises with a smirk. 

You don’t think you like Dammek very much. “R-Right. Nice meeting you.”

He nods and all but collapses back inside his tent, probably so he can go back to sleep. Maybe he has the right idea with that, though. It’s only a little past midnight but you’re already exhausted. People are exhausting. 

_ Fuck this. _ “I’m going home.”

“Bye,” Daraya says as she texts somebody on her palmhusk. “Tell Bronya I said I hope she falls into a chasm.”

“You know what? Maybe I will.”

Both her and Lanque actually smile. 

“I’ll take you to the surface so you don’t get lost,” he sighs, like he’s doing you the world’s greatest favor simply by showing you out, and you remember why you despise the bastard. 

The two of you make your way back up through the sewer without talking. Once you push away the cover to the entrance and haul yourself out, you take the biggest breath you’ve ever taken and tilt your face up to the moons shining down from above. It’s a clear, hot night, with the faint smell of a summer storm blowing in from the east. 

Lanque joins you, and you stand together in silence for a moment. 

Then he says, “Karako, I know you’re there.”

_ “Honk!” _ A small figure comes scrambling out from the sewer tunnel, covered in filth and smelling like, well. The sewer. 

“Karako Pierot! I haven’t seen you in nights!” you scold him, scooping him up into your arms and holding him away as the full force of his stench hits you like a truck. “Oh, you raggedy little animal, is this where you’ve been the whole time?”

“Honk!”

“Yes, I’m sure you were very brave. Now you are coming back to the caverns with me, young man! Bronya will be relieved to see that you’re okay.”

He chirps happily. You’re beyond relieved to see that he hasn’t been traumatized in any sort of way living with those rebellion hooligans, but that’s not something anybody else needs to know. When you set him down he hops over to Lanque, who ruffles his hair before shooing him away while he waves a still well-manicured hand in front of his nose. 

“Have fun getting the scoundrel into the ablution trap,” he mutters. 

“I will. Being that I take my duties seriously and all,” you snipe back. 

You expect him to shoot a scathing retort your way about being a useless goody two-shoes, but instead he just looks… distant. “If we win, will you stay in the caverns? Live life like you always have even though you could do… if you could  _ be _ someone new?”

“I…” The words are stuck on your tongue. “I’ve always loved being a part of a cloister. It’s everything to me.”

Again, he’s silent for a long moment, before he turns to drop back down into the sewer tunnel with practiced ease. “Give Wanshi my best.”

And then he’s gone, only pausing to drag the cover back over the entrance. 

Karako tugs on your sleeve and honks softly. You look down at him, wishing you could understand him better when he makes a noise you’re not familiar with. “What is it?”

“Honk!”

“You… need to go? To the toilet?”

He shakes his head and chitters. 

“You need to go… deep down… into the ground?”

_ “Honk.” _

“To show me something?”

He lights up and takes off, leaving you scrambling after him as you curse as loudly as you dare.

Clowns and their strange ways. You dread the night he starts attending church regularly. 

<>

Once you get back to the caverns Karako doesn’t hesitate to lead you down to the deepest level of the cave system, where most of the storage is. Your feet are sore from all the walking and running; you’re not exactly the most athletic troll in Thrashthrust. Nonetheless, you persist, only letting yourself stop when Karako seems to find what he’s looking for: a heap of old junk with a traffic cone on top. How did that get here? 

He shoves everything to the side to reveal a rust-covered vent that should have been replaced before you even hatched to reveal… a tunnel. It’s narrow and dusty, but it’s definitely not a ventilation shaft. 

“Honk!” he yelps excitedly. 

Your jaw drops. “It leads where?”

“Honk! Honk!”

“To the  _ rebel’s cave?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SECRET TUNNNEEEELLLLL!!!


	47. Of Pride and Pesterlogs

Your name is ROSE LALONDE and life has become… quite interesting, actually. Usually your summers are devoid of fun, as you live hours away from where your friends from school are and your mother is either absent or too inebriated to take you anywhere. By the time you reached fourth grade you had long since mastered the art of keeping yourself entertained through writing or gaming. As long as you kept yourself busy, the house didn’t feel so desolate, as if it had forgotten it was supposed to be a home. Things got better when you met Jade, John, and Dave online, though. Still, the thought of having real friends over had seemed like a childish fantasy.

Until now.

_“Calliopeholyshit!”_ Dirk actually squeals like a toddler as the sweet-tempered alien girl Mo- _Roxy_ calls her best friend lifts him up over her head like he weighs nothing. 

“Admit defeat!” Calliope demands, grinning ear-to-ear. 

“Oh, hell nah! This isn’t over yet!” 

Grabbing Calliope’s forearms, Dirk uses his body weight to knock her off balance. She rights herself easily, though, and holds him up by an ankle while he flails. “You humans are very determined, I will give you that.”

“Get his ass, Callie!” Roxy yells from the porch. 

“Throw him across the yard!” Jane adds.

Not to be outdone, Jake waves his napkin in support. “Show that scoundrel who’s boss!” 

“What the hell, you guys are supposed to be on my side, y’all are a bunch of traitors to our species-- oh God.” His sentence ends with another yelp as Calliope rights him effortlessly before setting him down on his feet. 

It’s been three days since Micah and a group of older teenagers (including an alternate teenage version of your dear mother) literally crash-landed in your backyard, followed by Calliope. Perhaps if you weren’t already friends with some trolls from a chaotic alien planet called Alternia you would have been more shaken up. Well, _friends_ is a very relative term when making the comparison between human and troll cultures, but even so you like to think that you are on good terms with all twelve of the ones you talk to on a regular basis. 

As if the universe itself was listening in to your thoughts, your phone vibrates in your pocket. Fishing it out, you take one look at the screen to see who texted you and almost drop it. 

  
  


**\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --**

GA: It Is Finished 

GA: My Greatest And Most Ambitious Project Yet Has At Last Come To Fruition

GA: And It Only Took Me A Little Over A Perigee

GA: Forgive Me For Gloating But A Woman Such As Myself Is Surely Allowed A Bit Of Pride Every Now And Again

GA: Jadebloods Can Be Proud Of Themselves Sometimes

GA: As A Treat

TT: You finished twelve entire stealthsuits equipped with communicators, storage for all kinds of weaponry, and breathable material suited to all kinds of environments in a little over a month? I daresay that is indeed a remarkable achievement, Miss Maryam. 

TT: I’m looking forward to seeing them with my own eyes… once I get around to convincing our mutual friend of the teleporting persuasion to let us aid you all in the rebellion. 

TT: And by convincing them I mean I have not brought it up yet. 

GA: Yes You Told Me The Night They And Their Friends Arrived That They Are Not Doing Well Both Physically And Mentally

GA: But Nobody Has Gotten Hurt Yet During Our Crusade

GA: Except For Eridan When He Fell Off The Roof Of Vriska’s Hive During A Strifing Session And Hit His Head On the Pavement

GA: But Eridan Is Kind Of Stupid So It Is Fine

TT: Okay, that’s actually pretty funny. 

GA: I Am Learning That Human Humor And Troll Humor Is Perhaps Not So Different After all

GA: One Hears Of A Tool Falling Off A Roof And Hitting His Head And No Matter The Species It Is Humorous 

GA: I Will Keep That In Mind

TT: I will also do more research into the deep and mysterious waters of the ocean that is troll comedy. From what I’ve learned from Aradia and Karkat, dark humor is also a staple of Alternian culture. 

GA: It Most Definitely Is 

GA: I Assume You Watched Some Of The Movies Karkat Sent You

TT: You assume correctly. Are all Alternian movies so gory?

GA: Goodness I Thought I Had Instructed Karkat To Send You The Ones That Aren’t So Violent 

TT: He probably did. 

GA: You Are Right 

TT: The next time we hang out we can watch a human movie together. I’ll bring Twilight, you’ll get a kick out of that. ;)

Holy shit, did you actually just send her a winky face? Either you didn’t get enough sleep last night or you’re getting braver. 

Your hands are shaking. 

GA: I Will Prepare Accordingly For this Twilight Film

GA: Although It Is Obvious To Anyone With A Functioning Pan That Alternian Literature Of All Kinds Is Still Vastly Superior To Human Literature

GA: No Offense Of Course It Is Simply That Humanity Hasn’t Had Enough Time To Advance In The Fine Arts Yet 

GA: Being That Your Kind Has Evolved Only Recently

GA: Very Recently

TT: You apologize for boasting of your hard-earned accomplishments and then turn around and mock my species because we’re relatively new? I’ll have you know that within a century-- that is, less than forty Alternian sweeps-- humans went from building the first functional aircraft to landing on our moon. 

TT: From what I’ve researched about the history of trollkind it seems that technology of all kinds hit a plateau several hundred sweeps ago… sad, really. So much potential to advance even more and yet progress is forbidden in the name of stating that your Empire has already reached perfection. 

GA: Listen Here

GA: Humans Smell Bad 

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

TT: No you. 

GA: No You

GA: Alright That Is Quite Enough

GA: Just Work On Finding A Way To Get Micah To Bring You And The Others Here So That You May Partake In Making Our World A Better Place

GA: It Will Be Very Exciting

GA: And I Will Protect You In Case Things Go Wrong 

Your face feels like it’s burning as you reread that line over and over again. The image of a valiant battlemaiden protecting her sorceress, just like in the novel you’re writing, emblazons itself on to the front of your brain. 

TT: Bold of you to assume it won’t be me pulling some seriously epic tricks out of my sleeve to save you instead. 

TT: I’ll dissect the mind of my opponents with such ferocity and wit that they won’t be able to do anything besides weep uncontrollably. Every last bit of their childhood trauma will be laid bare for their allies to see, every shadow, every nightmare, every regret they’ve ever suffered. They’ll have to live the rest of their lives knowing that their secret dirty past is no longer so secret. 

GA: Oh My

GA: Be Still My Beating Bloodpusher 

GA: I Look Forward To Seeing You Again Rose

**\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT]--**

“Tell Kanaya I said hi.”

_When did they even get here?_ You almost leap out of your skin, holding your phone close to your chest as Micah grins like the cat who got the canary. It gives you some form of comfort that they’re shorter than you, all the better to look down your nose at them. “Who said I was talking to Kanaya?”

“Your face looks like a tomato and you’ve been smiling for the past ten minutes without stopping.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure thing,” they chuckle, making a big deal out of examining their nails. “On a totally unrelated note, if you ever need advice on how to win over a special somebody… I’m your guy.”

“Am I to believe you had the time for such affairs during your travels?” you jab. 

Micah smirks. “Well, my _girlfriend_ and I managed.”

“Girlfriend?” The very word causes your stomach to lurch. 

“Yep. Her name’s Polypa. We’re moirails-- that’s the pale quadrant,” they explain. 

“I’ll… keep that in mind. In case I meet somebody and they’re a troll, that is,” you say hurriedly. 

“Of course.”

“It’s also time for you to eat some more fruit.”

“But I just ate.”

“You ate a breakfast burrito and then puked it back up.”

They groan. “Fine.”

Victorious, you march them back up to the house (almost getting bowled over by the older kids because Jake declared a game of manhunt) and into the kitchen. In the window above the sink, Mutie naps on the ledge with his tummy soaking up the sunshine. It’s like Jaspers is back, in a way, even though Mutie prefers wet food and Jaspers preferred dry food and Mutie doesn’t like to go outside as much. Having a cat in the house again is like a breath of fresh air. 

There’s also the fact that Mutie has four eyes. You wonder how this affects his vision. Is his sight better, or is his peripheral just expanded greatly? Will it cause any health problems? Was there not enough room in his skull for his brain to develop normally? He seems incredibly smart, though, much more so than the average feline. 

_You could ask Roxy,_ a hopeful voice in the back of your mind whispers as you cut up two apples for yourself and Micah.

_She’s Mom,_ a growl answers. 

_She’s not Mom. Mom never tries to get better. Roxy gets better every day._

_Their eyes are the same._

_Their hearts are different._

_Shut up!_ “Micah?” 

They stop _psspss-_ ing Mutie. “Yeah?”

“How do…” Damn it, this is hard. “How would one go about… I want to be friends with Roxy. So we can be family one day.”

They smile, a twinkle of pride in their eyes. You wish your Mom looked at you like that. “That’s a great thing to want. Why don’t you start joining in when the older kids get up to their shenanigans? I’m sure Roxy would love to have you along.”

“I will admit the idea of hanging out with them is… intimidating,” you say quietly. “Not just because Roxy is an alternate version of my mother, but because they are teenagers and I am still very much a younger child, at least by our society’s standards.”

“You’re much more mature than a lot of thirteen-year-olds. Interacting with you isn’t very different than interacting with Roxy or Jane,” they remind you as you sit down at the dinner table together. You scoop some peanut butter out of the jar you got from the cupboard to dip the apple slices in and dab it on to the plate. 

“... Is it selfish to want to form a connection with Roxy because of the nature of the relationship with my Mom?” you dare to ask. 

Micah shakes their head. “No. You deserve more, Rose. I’m sure your Mom loves you, but I think we both know that the way you were brought up wasn’t the healthiest.”

_You deserve more._ Three words, and yet they hold the weight of the world within them. 

“I’m never going to drink again,” you vow. 

“That’s very brave.”

“The next time my mother offers me alcohol I will dump it in her shoes.”

“Are you still grounded from the time we destroyed all the booze in the house?”

You start giggling. “Yes. No video games for the entire summer.”

“I am so sorry, but also it was _so_ worth it--”

You are both interrupted by the cacophony of noise that comes with five teenagers all but tumbling through the back door. 

“I gotta piss like a racehorse,” Dirk announces as he marches through the kitchen. 

**“I literally just got back from updating my software and that’s the first thing I hear? Not a ‘welcome back, Hal, nice to hear from you again, Hal’,”** a familiar voice complains from Dirk’s computer-shades. 

“Hi, Hal!” Micah calls. 

**“Hi, shorty. My second-favorite organic lifeform. Not Dirk. Fuck you, Dirk.”**

“What do you mean I’m not your favorite?” they gasp, looking tremendously offended. 

**“It’s Roxy, actually. We bully Dirk together.”**

“I’m trying to piss!” Dirk yells as he shuts the bathroom door and locks it. 

**“At least turn me off before you-- eewwwww, Christ. You’re dehydrated.”**

“Turn off your optic sensors you pervert--”

**“Why does it bend like that?”**

“I’m going to snap you in half.”

_“Anyways,”_ Micah says loudly. “You guys are gonna have to be on your own tomorrow. We obviously can’t stay here much longer because Rose’s Mom is gonna be back this weekend, so I need to make a trip to Jade’s island to… work some things out.”

Their eyes meet yours, and the apprehensiveness they’re trying to hide leaks through their mask of confidence. 

You know this Dirk Strider that’s messing with his shades is the alternate Bro Strider, although much less… unhinged. This Strider’s version of brutally fucking with someone is to shove a frog down the back of their shirt, not beat them within an inch of their life. Of course you were wary of him at first, but within the first few hours of getting to know him it was plain to see that this boy is not the monster that scarred Dave for life. 

“Tell my granddaughter I said hello!” Jake cheers. “Oh, I can’t wait to see her again!”

“What’s a granddaughter?” Calliope whispers to Roxy. 

“It’s the female child of their parent’s… parent,” Roxy explains. 

“... Oh.”

“I’ll draw you a diagram after dinner. Family stuff can get kind of confusing.”

“I can help with that. There are several books on human biology in my mother’s library,” you add as casually as possible. 

Of course you aren’t allowed in there under any circumstances, but while Mother is away, the wayward daughter will come out to play. 

Roxy beams at you, and you feel something in your chest lighten. You can’t wait to learn more about this girl from the future. The next few weeks will be very interesting indeed, what with figuring out a way to join your troll friends on Alternia to help with their rebellion, but for now, being here with her… it’s enough. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys... guys I finally figured out how to do pesterlogs. Hee hee. Coding go brrrrrr


	48. Of Drama, Teenage, and Trauma, Spicy

Your name is Micah and today you’re going to have to do something very difficult. 

To start things off, the discussion you had with Rose yesterday isn’t giving you a lot of hope that Dave is trying to heal, with Rose implying that it’s because he doesn’t believe that there’s anything to heal  _ from. _ Part of you just wants to smack some sense into the kid, the other still raring to track down Bro Strider and finish him off for good. One less thing to worry about and all that. There’s also no predicting exactly how Dave would react to Dirk.

Which brings you to the other half of the spectacularly shitty equation. Dirk’s sense of self is… complicated. Once he finds out that a version of himself abused his brother, what’s to stop him from believing that he’s capable of doing the same, that he’s destined to become a monster just like so many of his splinters? You don’t want him to have to shoulder that burden. He’s just a teenager too, for fuck’s sake! The only things he should have to worry about are what he wants to do when he gets older and his very obvious crush on Jake. 

Dave and Dirk are your family, yes, but before that they are two of your dearest friends. 

You stick around long enough in the morning to eat breakfast with everybody and make them promise that they won’t burn the house down. After that you zap off to Jade’s island, hoping for the best but knowing that one way or the other, shit is about to go down. 

Of course the weather is absolutely perfect when you arrive-- warm enough to soak into your bones like a hot bath, the sky blue and cloudless, the ocean so clear that you can see the coral reefs at the bottom. The universe is making fun of you, you just know it. 

An excited flurry of barking greets you from down the trail that leads to the beach, and you barely have time to brace yourself before Bec appears in a brilliant flash of green and nearly knocks you on your ass.

“Blargh!” You turn your face to the side to avoid getting slimy dog tongue up your nostrils as he jumps up and hooks his front paws on your shoulders. “Hey, Bec! Stay down, good boy. How’s it been? Are you a good boy?”

_ “Woof!”  _

“Yes, you are a good boy! Can you take me to Jade and Dave?”

Bec lets go and turns circles in place while trying to catch his tail, before galloping back down the sandy path, leaving you to run after him. 

Jade and Dave are running around in the shallows together when you get down to the beach, kicking water at each other like kids do and skipping rocks. Dave sees you first and waves. He then squeals at an impressive volume as Bec takes a flying leap into the water and almost takes Dave with him. 

“Hi Micah!” Jade yells. “Come join us!”

Why the hell not? Kicking off your boots, you hike up the shorts Rose let you borrow and wade on in. A wave hits the back of your thigh and you yelp in surprise, because hello, you are tiny and delicate and the ocean is kind of chilly. 

“So what have you guys--  _ ohgeezsomething’stouchingme-- _ been up to?” you ask cheerfully. 

“Well, we figured out that the longest Dave can stay outside without burning is half an hour, and that’s with sunscreen,” Jade announces. 

“Look, the sun needs its own time to shine, okay? Can’t have two hot as all hell studs within view of each other without it gettin’ messy. It’s just not possible. In fact, I think it’s time for me to head back inside to give the big guy some space,” Dave drawls, tapping the nonexistent watch on his left wrist. 

“Always the perfect gentleman, huh?” Jade fawns jokingly. 

Dave salutes. “You fuckin’ bet, Harley. Let’s go, Micah, you need some sunscreen before your skinny white ass gets burnt to a crisp.”

“I sure frickin’ do,” you sigh. You can already feel your face and shoulders start to get hot. 

Together, you and Dave head up to the house, with Dave rambling on about his newest mixtape he’s been working on for the past three months. He’s wearing a t-shirt and swim trunks, which hides most of his scars, but from what you can see his injuries are healing well. There’s no stiffness in his movements, either. 

“... ‘cause John and Karkat bully me relentlessly about my choices in interior design in my  _ Minecraft _ house, which is bullshit because my crib is so sick it’s nearly dead from fever. Just absolutely gone. A child dying from malaria would have stood a better chance than my digital kingdom. If there was ever a chance that their houses could live up to mine it’s long gone by now, which is impressive considering that John literally built a castle because he’s a nerd. Karkat just fixed up a cave, so he doesn’t get to say shit,” Dave tells you with all the passion of an architect major defending his best blueprints. “And don’t even get me started on Jade. Just ‘cause she’s a natural at the game doesn’t mean she’s better than me!”

“I believe you,” you assure him. “Have you been having fun here?”

“Yeah! There’s a zipline, and the island is huge so there’s always new stuff to discover, and Jade’s house is big as hell so you can run around inside, and she taught me how to swim. I almost drowned seven times, but I think I finally got the hang of it.”

“Seven? The first six weren’t enough for you?”

“Nope. The feeling of saltwater in my lungs is what I live for, Micah. Not  _ Minecraft, _ not sick beats or badass swords. It’s always been the sweet, sweet sensation of hitting my head on the coral while my chest burns like a goddamn ghost pepper.”

“You’re going to give me gray hair.”

The AC hits you like a wall as you follow Dave into the kitchen, letting the door creak shut behind you. Shivering, you grab a towel and wrap it around yourself. 

_ Alright, loser. It’s now or never. _ “So a few of my other friends and I are staying at Rose’s place while her mom is away, but Doctor Lalonde is gonna be back in a couple of days and we need to go somewhere else so Rose doesn’t get grounded until the day she dies. I want to ask Jade if I can bring them here.”

“Really? Sick. We need more people here, dude, Harley’s gonna get tired of me before the end of next week. She’ll say yes,” Dave says as he rubs sunscreen on his arms. 

“So… here’s the thing.” You sit down at the dinner table and take a deep breath. “Remember meeting Roxy?”

“Yeah! How’s Mom?”

“She’s… in the process of getting over an illness, but she’s doing a lot better. You know how she’s an alternate version of your biological mother?”

“Duh.”

“Well, the three other kids are alternate versions of John’s grandmother, Jade’s grandfather, and… your Bro.”

Dave stops putting on sunscreen. 

“They’re all really great. We’ve been through a lot these past few days,” you say quietly. “First Roxy was sick, and then there was this hurricane so we had to leave Dirk’s place, so we went to Rose’s place, and then I saved a friend of Roxy’s from the future who is also an alien-- not a troll, though. But it’s been awesome, too.”

“... What’s he like?”

His voice is perfectly neutral. You’re beginning to wonder if you should have tried to figure something else out before dumping all of this on a traumatized preteen. 

“Dirk? He’s a real force of nature. He likes beatboxing, drawing his favorite anime characters, swordfighting, coding… kid’s talented as hell, for sure. I’m sure you two would get along like a house on fire. At first he seems like a jackass, but once you get to know him he’s just kind of a nerd.” You snort when you recall Hal exposing the secret playlist his algorithm made for Dirk. 

Several minutes go by, and nobody speaks. 

Finally, Dave goes and sweeps the rug out from under you. “Rose is my sister, isn’t she? Her mom is my mom and Bro is her dad.”

All you can do is nod. 

“Rose said that her mom knew my Bro because she was talking a lot while drunk, and when she pried… there was something about ectobiology, and then she passed out. We brushed it off at the time, but now everything’s coming together.”

“And… are you okay with that?”

“Are you kidding me? I have a sister! And it’s  _ Rose,”  _ Dave says disbelievingly, sitting down across from you. “Out of all the people I could have met on the internet, I found my biological sister and one of my best friends. This is fucking amazing.”

_ And out of all the people I could have met, I found the two of you as well. _ “I’m so glad to hear that, Dave. I figured it out awhile back and was waiting for the right time to bring it up, but hey, this works too, I guess.”

“We do look a lot alike, huh? That Strider-LaLonde-genetic goodness,” he jokes. 

“You have the same eyes,” you say truthfully. 

“Yeah. I want to get to know my family, Micah. That includes B--  _ Dirk,” _ Dave says, the name coming out of his mouth like he’s trying to speak an unfamiliar language. “He sounds pretty cool. Maybe we can make some epic tracks together. The Strider boys, teaming up to shake the world of music to its core.”

His body language says otherwise, with tense shoulders and a gaze that doesn’t meet yours underneath his shades, but you can tell this is something he wants. Bro never gave him a family, but you know Dirk can. Maybe the (more or less) same guy who forced him into the darkness could also be the one to lead him out of it. 

You smile at him. “Alright. Well, we’ll take this one step at a time. How about we wrap up our family-feelings talk and go swim until there’s sand in our asscracks?” 

Dave practically falls over in relief and races out of the kitchen, and you grab the sunscreen and chase after him, letting yourself forget your worries just for a little while. 

<>

Jade, thankfully, agrees to open her home to the alpha kids, getting more excited once she hears her grandfather-slash-grandson will be with them. The rest of the day is spent swimming, cowering in the shade with Dave every half-hour while Jade laughs at you from the water, and taking a couple of breaks for lunch and snacks. The sand between your toes and the sun on your skin feels so good you tear up a few times. Memories flicker around the edge of your mind like shadows around a candle every now and again, showing you a glimpse of a sunset on another beach in another time, a thunderstorm making palm trees sway in the wind. 

None of them really stick, though, so by the time dinner rolls around you forget about it. You all but have to pry the kids off you so you can teleport back to New York, because Jade wants you to stay for dinner and Dave just joined in for the hell of it. 

“Guys, I’ll be back tomorrow!” you laugh, trying to wriggle out from in between them. “Ew, Dave, why are you so sweaty?”

“I’m fresh and juicy, that’s why. Embrace the juiciness, Micah. You can’t escape it.”

“You are  _ so _ gross--”

“Can’t you stay?” Jade whines. 

“I gotta go back and help everybody get ready, dude. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning with five more assholes to keep you guys company,” you promise. 

Bec yips, his tail disappearing into a white blur from wagging it so fast. You have no doubt that he knows he’s going to have some new fans here shortly. Is it a First Guardian thing to want to have lots of friends?

Then you remember Doc Scratch, and you have to force yourself to not cringe. 

Reluctantly, Jade and Dave release you, and you ruffle their hair before giving Bec a couple more ear scratches. “Why don’t you guys make a list of things you want to do?”

“Like what?” Jade asks eagerly. 

“Damn, uhhh… we could do a day in New York with Rose, and then a day in Seattle with John… just think of stuff we can keep ourselves busy with, because if we all stay on the same island for, like, the whole summer somebody’s gonna end up dead,” you explain. 

Dave considers this, then nods. “Yeah, that’s legit.”

You give them the thumbs-up. Before you zap away, you lock eyes with Dave and nod. Hopefully he knows that you’ll be there for him through all of this. 

Reappearing back in the living room, you’re greeted not with the sight of a peaceful household but with the sound of something plastic hitting a wall and yelling teenagers. 

_ The fresh fuck is this?  _ You scramble into the kitchen to see Roxy and Jane facing off over the dining table. By the porch door, Dirk, Rose, Jake, and Calliope all but cower like they’re trying to avoid detection. 

“Rose asked me to help throw out her mom’s booze so I did, okay? Nobody drank anything, nobody even took out a fucking cork!” Roxy shouts. 

“Why would you even be in the same room as alcohol after everything that happened? What if you relapsed?” Jane cries, throwing her hands up in the air. “Just because you feel better now doesn’t mean that everything is all fine and dandy!”

“I’m in control, dude! You’re not in charge of me, so quit acting like you’re some sorta mom!”

“We almost lost you and then you come back from the woods smelling like alcohol! What else was I supposed to think?”

“Damn, Janey, I dunno, maybe you should have tried to have a little more faith in me?”

“I do have faith in you! Which is why we need to work together to make sure you don’t end up addicted again!”

_ “Work together? _ Bitch, you’re the one who said this is my fault in the first place. Take your working together and shove it up your-!”

“Okay!” you yell, leaping into the fray with your hands out. “Roxy, Jane, let’s break this down into something more manageable. You both have reasons to be upset, but until we’re able to find more constructive arguments this hollering isn’t going to solve anything.”

“Micah, please tell Roxy I just want to make things right again!” Jane begs. 

Roxy tosses her curls. “And please tell Jane I’m  _ not _ interested.”

You rub your temples. Christ on a fucking trampoline, you need more friends your own age. “Oh, boy. Listen, guys, I’m assuming that the argument you had back at Dirk’s place was about Roxy’s alcohol withdrawal and that Jane was upset enough that she said some things in a way that could have been said better.”

“Sure.”

“Yes.”

“Awesome sauce. Roxy, I’m going to address you first, and if nobody can speak until I’m done that would be cool. Cool?”

Both girls nod. 

“Roxy. You have every right to be pissed at Jane for the things she said to you, especially since you had done something very brave by addressing your drinking problem… even though it didn’t turn out so great at first. Addiction was not, nor was it ever, your fault, and I’m  _ so  _ fucking proud of you for managing to overcome it. However, Jane’s in the right for being concerned about your exposure to anything alcoholic-- hey, shut your mouth, I’m not done yet. I know you’re able to control yourself, but for the rest of our sanity could you please avoid anything more dangerous than soda for the time being?”

Roxy considers your words, and then crosses her arms. “Okay.”

“Thank you. Jane. You also have every right to want to help Roxy through this shit; you guys have been friends for years and helping each other through shit is what friends do. I also understand that you want to make up for saying what you said to her a few days ago. But the harder you push on her, the harder she’s going to push back, and it’s not going to stop until somebody snaps. The last thing Roxy needs right now is to be smothered, which is how she feels when you try to take charge of what she does. You remember how you always felt smothered by your Dad growing up? Well, like it or not it looks like you’ve learned that behavior as a method of keeping tabs on the people you care about. Right intentions, wrong way of going about it.”

Realization dawns on Jane’s face. “... Oh.”

“Yeah. We all need therapy.”

Nobody talks for a long moment. You think you’re in the clear, so you let out the breath you’ve been holding and force yourself to relax your shoulders. 

“I feel so  _ angry _ all the damn time,” Roxy hisses. 

“I did some research on alcohol withdrawal on the computer yesterday. Irritability is definitely one of the symptoms,” Jane tells her. 

“That explains why I want to fistfight everybody in this house.”

“Yes, it certainly would.”

You sigh, grief making you feel heavy. You know what that feels like, to want to lash out, to hurt people, even the people you care about. It feels so good and it hurts so much. Hopefully this won’t be a permanent thing for Roxy. 

The girls eye each other, quietly go their separate ways. There’s no apologies, but you don’t think that they’re ready for that just yet, and that’s fine. Calliope and Rose go after Roxy, and Jake goes after Jane (they seem to be on good terms again, yay), leaving you alone with Dirk. You hear Calliope whisper, “How did nobody die? How in Skaia did nobody die?”

“Hey, man. You ready for tomorrow?” you ask. 

“Yeah. Looking forward to shredding some waves again. You would think that I wouldn’t miss the ocean after being surrounded by the big blue bitch my whole life, but…” Dirk huffs. “It’ll be nice, I think. I also wanna meet Jake’s granddaughter. She sounds like a badass kid.”

“She is,” you agree. 

“That was legendary, by the way. What you did back there.”

“Heh, you think so? The trick is to be small and cute, so that people are afraid to get violent around you because they might step on you or some shit,” you explain. 

Dirk reaches over and gently pokes the scar on your forehead. 

“Results may vary depending on the species of people,” you admit. 

“Did that hurt?”

“No. Just a little sore.”

Dirk nods. “Good, it’s healing well. The bruising cleared up pretty quickly, too. You would think given that you’re twenty pounds underweight and have a chronic case of getting your ass handed to you every other week you’d heal slower that normal, but nah, you’re on that shit like strippers on a pole.”

“My trauma is chronic, but my ass is iconic.”

“Word.”

You hesitate, and then decide you’ve dealt with enough bullshit already today and to just finish it up so you can go take a nap before dinner. “Dirk, the reason why I went over to Jade’s today was that I needed to talk to this universe’s version of Dave Strider, who I know was your Bro in your universe. He’s staying with Jade because… something bad happened at home and he needed to leave. He didn’t have a good relationship with his legal guardian, just like you didn’t have a good relationship with yours, but he does want a relationship with you. I hope that maybe you two could be friends, given enough time.”

Dirk considers this in his usual logical way, head slightly tilted and picking at a scab on his thumb. “Looks like no matter what the universe I’m gonna run into family shit, huh? Well, I’d like to meet this dude. Maybe this time we can get it right.”

“That would be awesome,” you encourage, relieved that he’s taking it so well. “Dave’s been through a lot, and so have you, so just… remember to be patient with each other, okay? 

“Okay. Can we have mac n’ cheese?”

“If Jane wants to make some with the sandwiches, yeah.”

Dirk runs off to hunt down Jane to get that sweet, sweet mac n’ cheese, and you make a beeline for the couch and flop down to pull a blanket over your head. One sneaker gets yeeted off, then the other. Fuck yeah, it’s sleepy time for emotionally exhausted First Guardians. 

A loud scream has your eyes popping open like the pits of hell. “Jake threw an egg at me!”

_ “Ohhh Gooddddddd,” _ you whine, shoving a pillow over your head while chaos erupts once more in the LaLonde mansion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol guys thanks for waiting, I'm sick with what might be COVID but the grind never stops so here's another chapter! I've had a steady fever for five days now and I'm THIS close to filling up my bath with ice water and just. Sitting in it. My brain is cooked like a rotisserie chicken.


	49. Of Homes, Empty and Otherwise

You’re woken up the next morning by Mutie jumping on your stomach and begging for breakfast. When you don’t immediately cave to his demands you are punished with a couple of firm bats to your cheek, and so you get up to get his wet food. Ever since you befriended Roxy he seems to have adopted you as another servant of his, coming to you whenever Roxy wasn’t available whenever he needed food or cuddles. 

Are you the First Guardian of the universe? Yes. Will you bow without hesitation to the desires and whims of a cat? Also yes. 

After you feed Mutie you make yourself some tea and go out on the porch to watch the sunrise. Robins hop around the lawn, occasionally halting with a tilt of their head before pulling a worm up from the ground. In the east, dawn colors the sky in all shades of orange and pink, washing the world below in sweet rosy tones. You always miss the sun when you’re on Alternia, the freedom of stepping outside to bask in warmth and light. Strangely, it was that sensation of missing something that helped you fall in love with the night. Maybe you didn’t have the sun anymore, but you did have the moons, and you could look at those all you liked without burning your eyeballs out of their sockets. 

The thought pops into your head that you’ll never get to show Zebruh what Earth looks like after the rebellion. You let the grief hit you like a truck again, but for some reason it’s not so bad. Maybe you’re starting to process and heal? That would be awesome if you are. Hanging out with the kids definitely helped you take a mental step back from the non-stop chaos back in Thrashthrust. 

The glass door slides open, and Rose joins you with her coffee and some pancakes you made for the kids the other day. You remember asking what she wanted for breakfast instead of oatmeal because you know she’s sick of that shit, and then watching her whole face light up like Christmas came early. 

You eye her coffee mug. “Don’t drink too much or the caffeine will stunt your growth.”

She smirks. “That’s just a myth designed to keep children away from coffee. Besides, how tall are you?”

“I-- okay, you got me there,” you warn, pointing a finger at her while she chews smugly on her pancakes. “Still! Caffeine isn’t good for kids!”

She sticks her tongue out at you. Silence falls over the porch as the two of you watch the sunlight coming in through the trees and listen to the birds. 

After a few minutes she says, “You’ll come visit every week, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ll bring Roxy.”

“Absolutely. Just text her or one of the others and I’ll come get you whenever you need me to, okay? We can hang here, or go to Jade’s, or whatever you want,” you promise. 

Rose looks a little less tense after you say that. You and her hang out on the porch until you can hear Jane calling for Dirk to come help her with the french toast for breakfast, followed by Dirk audibly thumping down the stairs the way teenage boys do when they have to get up before noon. Jake, Calliope, and Roxy emerge soon after, judging by the sounds of excited chattering between the trio about the former’s grandmother/granddaughter. 

You bump your shoulder against hers as the two of you step back into the house. “Thanks again for letting us stay, Rose. Take care of yourself, eat vegetables, don’t do drugs unless prescribed by a doctor--”

“MUTIE UPCHUCKED ON THE CARPET!” Jake hollers. 

“For FUCK’s sake!” Roxy shouts back. 

Rose hides a giggle in the front of her hoodie as Calliope chases Mutie around to try and wipe kitty puke off his muzzle, while Roxy huffs over to the cabinet under the sink to get disinfectant for the carpet. 

Roxy points the disinfectant at Rose. “Don’t get another cat until you’re ready to clean up puke! It’s like having a baby. Except cats are easier. And cuter.”

“Okay,” Rose agrees with a smile. 

“What? Did you ever have a secret baby we didn’t know about, Roxy?” Jane demands, pointing her batter-covered spatula at the blonde. 

“I don’t need to have any babies to know that they’re gross!”

You remember the Homestuck Epilogues and feel your organs shrivel up inside of you. “Alright, look. I love you guys with my whole heart, but  _ please _ don’t have kids until you’re at least, like, ninety-percent mentally okay. Please.”

_ And don’t name them fucking Yiffany. I need to have this same discussion with Jade, too, so she doesn’t go and name any possible future kids of hers after furry sex. I can’t believe this is something I have to worry about.  _

Dirk looks up from loading waffles on to a place and makes a face. “Micah, you look like you’re about to throw up or cry or both. Are you thinking about your future kids? Would they be able to teleport? Fuck, that would be hilarious, actually.”

“Uhhhh…” You try and imagine yourself pregnant and gag. Hello, gender dysphoria, haven’t heard from you in awhile. You get the same result when you envision holding a shrieking bundle of terror in your arms. “Yeah, no. Hell no.”

“Fair.”

Calliope sits down at the dinner table with Mutie cradled in her arms. “I read a book concerning human biology yesterday and somehow made it through the chapters concerning reproduction without bursting into tears. The females of your species really do get the short end of the stick, don’t they?”

“Indeed we do,” Rose agrees. “We’re the superior sex, though, built to withstand pain that would have any man begging for the sweet release of death.”

“Really?” Calliope stares in awe. 

You wonder if you should introduce the kids to the whole gender-is-a-spectrum discussion while the topic of human biology is on the table. “Well, it’s not just the ladies that can--”

Jake comes flying into the kitchen with an expression of utter panic on his face. “There’s an automobile pulling up into your driveway, Rose!”

There’s a second of dead quiet, and then everybody springs into action. Jane and Dirk shove the food into a tupperware container and the dishes into the dishwasher. Calliope takes off with Mutie in her arms, Roxy on her heels, and you and Jake run upstairs to get everybody’s stuff. Pretty much everything was packed last night, thank God, so as long as you can just get Dirk, Jane, Roxy, and Jake out of here before Rose’s mom comes inside it’ll be fine--

The garage door begins to creak open.  _ Shit! _

Jake grabs the others’ bags, and you zap him over to Jade’s island. 

The island is entirely too peaceful when there’s so much shit going on back in New York. Perfect blue skies, the smell of tropical flowers in the breeze, like the land itself is making fun of you. “Tell Jade we’re on our way over, okay?”

“Got it!”

You zap back to Jane and Dirk, grab them, and bring them over, followed by Roxy, Calliope, and Mutie, who upon landing in an entirely different setting than the one he was in before decides biting you is the best course of action. 

“Ow!” You shake out your arm and glare at Mutie as he struggles in Calliope’s unyielding grip. “Sorry, dude, but that was a dick move.”

“His water bowl is in the kitchen,” Roxy says, alarmed. 

“Aw, man, can’t you just use one of Jade’s?” you complain. 

“Why would there be a cat bowl in a house with no cats?”

“... Good point.”

Teleporting over to Rose’s house once more, you sneak downstairs so you can grab Mutie’s bowl and get the hell out of Dodge. Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious…

Of course, the first thing you do upon trying to scout out the kitchen to make sure it’s clear is hit your hipbone on the cabinet beside the counter. 

Because you have no fat on your bony little corpse the pain hits you harder than your PTSD, but there’s no time to collapse to the ground and beg the universe for mercy. Rose and her mom are staring at you from the kitchen table, with Dr. LaLonde’s suitcase at her side and Rose’s hands clenched into fists on the chair she’s standing over. 

“Um, hi,” you say. 

Before her mom can respond, Rose jumps into action like the badass she is. “Mom, this is Micah. Remember them?”

Dr. LaLonde blinks. “I… yes, of course. They’re your tutor from the high school?”

“Yes,” Rose tells her coolly. 

“Oh, hi, Dr. LaLonde,” you greet her with an outstretched hand, which she shakes with a warm, sleepy smile. “Nice to see you again. I hope the convention went well.”

For the first time, you notice the silver flask on the table. 

… No frickin’ way. She’s drunk. 

Then you remember Jake warning you about her car pulling up into the driveway, and you almost explode on the spot. Was this woman seriously  _ drinking while driving? _ What the actual fuck? She could have killed herself or some other poor bastard on the road!

“How’d you even get all the way out here? We’re  _ hours _ away from the city!” LaLonde laughs, sitting down heavily in her chair. “Thanks for tutoring Rosie, though, I know she gets lonely during the summer!”

_ Maybe if you actually spent time with her she wouldn’t be lonely! _ “Of course. Rose is a fantastic student, she reads and writes well above her grade level.”

This isn’t a lie at all, Rose is easily one of the most academically advanced kids you know. Does her mother know that? She has to, there’s no way a scientist wouldn’t see how brilliant her own daughter is. 

“Yay! Maybe you can get those fantasy novels of yours published, make some money.  _ Lots _ of money. She refuses to let me read them,” Dr. LaLonde pouts. 

A wave of smugness chases away some of the rage. Rose shows  _ you _ her work all the time. 

“That would be nice,” Rose agrees. She’s still gripping the top of the chair like she’s refraining from putting a hole through a wall. You don’t blame her. 

Either Dr. LaLonde doesn’t notice her daughter is on the verge of starting the shitstorm of the century or she simply doesn’t care. “Well, I’ve got a killer heap… headache… and jetlag, so I’m off to bed. Rose, you can… find dinner, or wha’ever. S’ nice to see you.”

With that, she all but drags herself out of the kitchen and up the stairs. You hear her shuffling, and then…  _ thump. _ There it is. The distinctive sound of a body hitting the floor after blacking out. It’s a sound you can pick out from miles away now, a skill finely honed from your wild party days on Alternia. 

Rose bursts into angry tears, covering her face with her hands as she sobs uncontrollably. You gather her into your arms and hold her tight. 

“Why?” she pleads hoarsely, a question to an answer you never want to give her.  _ “Why does she never want to be with me?” _

“Oh, Rose, you are not responsible for what she does, you understand?” you whisper.

“I just want--” She can’t finish her sentence before she’s crying hysterically again. The only thing you can do is rock her back and forth while you stroke her hair, keep her tethered to reality. The grief and loneliness of having a parent who chose alcohol over her had built up inside for thirteen years, thirteen years of wondering why she was second best to endless hangovers and drunken nights in the laboratory and gaps in memory nothing would be able to replace, thirteen years of having to raise herself because nobody else wanted to put all of the effort. 

You know that Dr. LaLonde loves Rose. But not as much as she should, as she deserves. 

She cries for what feels like hours. The alpha kids are probably wondering where the hell you are, but you can explain later. 

The anger burning inside of you bursts into flames hot enough to burn down a whole city. “Rose, you don’t have to live like this anymore. Do you want to come with me?”

Rose hesitates, and then clings to you tighter. “I-I have to take care of her for-for now--”

“No, you don’t. She’s a grown woman. She can figure out her own bullshit one way or the other.”

“... C-Can I think about it?”

“Yes,” you tell her, relieved that she’s at least considering leaving. “Yes, of course.”

“I’m sorry for all of this.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this is your fault.”

“So many of the other kids at school have parents who give them attention and drive them to their friends’ houses for sleepovers and tell them  _ good job _ and I just… why didn’t I get that? What sort of contemptible test did my unknowing immortal soul not pass that landed me in this predicament as a human being?”

You want nothing more than to assure her that you’ll take care of her from now on, that she can rely on you for anything and everything, but you bite the words back. This isn’t the time to be making those kinds of promises, not when you have a war to fight on another planet and your own issues to sort through. The last thing you want to do is emotionally fuck up some poor kid. “You’re going to come out of this okay, and I’ll be there to support you. And if something goes wrong--”

“Call 911.”

“Yes. And if you need to leave and I’m not back yet--”

“Text Jade and Bec will come get me.”

“Exactly.”

Rose wipes her nose with her sleeve and glances away. She looks so many years older than she actually is. “Thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

She hesitates, like she wants to say something else, but then she just scrubs her face with her hands. “I’m going to nap this off. Just… come back soon and in one piece.”

“I will,” you agree. 

Grabbing Mutie’s bowl off the floor, you watch Rose shuffle off upstairs, daintily stepping over her unconscious mother to get to her bedroom. You glare at Dr. LaLonde. 

_ This won’t be the last you see of me.  _

<>

You make it to Jade’s house just in time to see everybody congregating on the front porch. Holding your breath, you watch as Dave and Dirk lock eyes with each other. 

For the next six seconds, you count every heartbeat, every breath that you take. All of the other kids are chatting excitedly with Jade or fussing over an overjoyed Bec, but you don’t miss the way Jade’s eyes keep flickering over to the brothers. 

Both boys are completely emotionless. Dirk tilts his head as he regards Dave with his usual cool detachment. Dave scratches his arm, looking very small despite being not much shorter than him. You can practically see his  _ Be Cool _ programming running at full force. Dirk, on the other hand, reminds you of a high school senior trying to greet a new freshman without scaring the piss out of him. 

“Hey,” Dirk says. 

“Hey.” Dave greets him with a nod. 

“Sweet shades, dude,” Dirk offers. 

“You too.” 

For the first time, Dave cracks a small smile. You exhale a sigh of relief. 

_ Thank fuck.  _

Today might have sucked ass, but at least the Strider brothers got one small victory. You’ll stick around for one more day to make sure everybody settles in, and then you need to get back to Alternia. 

Has it been a week already? You can’t remember. The old stirrings of adventure are calling to you once more, as Jake would say, so you guess it’s time to get back to business. 

From the porch, Jade spots you and waves, calling you over. You grin and run up the driveway, pushing away thoughts of war for tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, I'm back! The mystery illness that I'm dealing with may or may not be COVID, but I got some bloodwork done, so the results should be back within the next few days. Does anybody have any idea wtf could cause me to run a 99-100F fever for two and a half weeks straight? I've got some other weird stuff going on but it's kind of nasty so I'll spare you the details. This whole thing is not poggers, I tell you. 
> 
> On the bright side, my parents got a puppy and I'm trying to get them to name her a Homestuck name because I'm fucking deranged after spending half a month by myself in my apartment. I've got my mom in favor of Joey. My non-Homestuck friends are calling me a war criminal.

**Author's Note:**

> What's up, fuckers? Yeah, it's yah boi with some Home stuck fan fiction. 
> 
> Yeah, Pesterquest was awesome, but I was fucking DEVASTATED that we didn't get to see our Friendsim pals again. Are they canonically dead? Yes. Do I give a single flying coochie hair? No. If this amazing multi-genre abomination of a story taught me anything, it's that the author is dead and I am god. 
> 
> Basically, MSPA Reader goes back in time to save their friends and Alternia, and maybe Earth too while they're at it, and maybe the multiverse? Who knows. I'm flying by the seat of my pants and I have no parachute. 
> 
> This is self-indulgent shit and I'm so excited. The Corona virus has nothing on my sheer power. 
> 
> Stay safe fuckers.


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